| Gengasaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic,
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|---|---|
Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | †Ichthyosauria |
| Family: | †Ophthalmosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Ophthalmosaurinae |
| Genus: | †Gengasaurus Paparella et al., 2017 |
| Species: | †G. nicosiai
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| Binomial name | |
| †Gengasaurus nicosiai Paparella et al., 2017
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Gengasaurus is an extinct genus of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Jurassic. The type and only species, Gengasaurus nicosiai, was named in 2017, after the locality of Genga, Marche.1 It lived in Italy about 152 million years ago.2
History
The near complete holotype was discovered in 1976 in the Late Jurassic (Tithonian) Calcari ad aptici e Saccocoma Formation at Camponocecchio and it was described in 19803 and 20004 as the "Genga ichthyosaur" before it was named and described in 201652 - this paper was eventually published in 2017.1 The holotype is now housed at the Spaelaeo-Palaeontologic Museum in Genga.
Phylogeny
The following cladogram shows a possible phylogenetic position of Gengasaurus in Ophthalmosauridae according to the analysis performed by Zverkov and Jacobs (2020).6
References
References
- Ilaria Paparella; Erin E. Maxwell; Angelo Cipriani; Scilla Roncacè; Michael W. Caldwell (2017). "The first ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Upper Jurassic of the Umbrian–Marchean Apennines (Marche, Central Italy)". Geological Magazine. 154 (4): 837–858. Bibcode:2017GeoM..154..837P. doi:10.1017/S0016756816000455. S2CID 132955874.
- "Paleo Profile: The Genga Lizard". Scientific American. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
- Fastelli, C. & Nicosia, U. (1980). L'Ittiosauro di Genga (Ancona). In I vertebrati fossili italiani (eds Parisi, G. & Seppi, G.), pp. 95–101. Verona: Catalogo della Mostra.
- De Marinis, G. & Nicosia, U. (2000). L'Ittiosauro di Genga. Castelferretti, Ancona: Cassa di Risparmio di Fabriano e Cupramontana Edizioni, 220 pp.
- Ilaria Paparella, Erin E. Maxwell, Angelo Cipriani, Scilla Roncacè and Michael W. Caldwell (2016) - The first ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur from the Upper Jurassic of the Umbrian–Marchean Apennines (Marche, Central Italy). Geological Magazine (advance online publication)
- Nikolay G. Zverkov & Megan L. Jacobs (2021) [2020]. "Revision of Nannopterygius (Ichthyosauria: Ophthalmosauridae): reappraisal of the 'inaccessible' holotype resolves a taxonomic tangle and reveals an obscure ophthalmosaurid lineage with a wide distribution". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 191 (1): 228–275. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa028.