Editing Plesiosaurus (section)

==Discovery==


[[File:Mary Anning Plesiosaurus.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Letter concerning the discovery of the genus from [[Mary Anning]]]]

The first complete skeleton of ''Plesiosaurus'' was discovered by early paleontologist and fossil hunter [[Mary Anning]] in [[Sinemurian]] ([[Early Jurassic]])-age rocks of the lower [[Lias Group]] in December 1823 near [[Lyme Regis]] in [[Dorset]], [[England]].<ref>Torrens 1995</ref><ref name=Storrs146>Storrs 1997 pp. 146</ref> Additional fossils of ''Plesiosaurus'' were found in rocks of the Lias Group of [[Dorset]] for many years,<ref>Andrew 1896</ref><ref>Lydekker 1889</ref><ref>Owen 1865</ref> "until the cessation of quarrying activities in the Lias Group, early in this [20th] century."<ref name=Storrs146/> although less complete remains were used by [[Henry De la Beche]] and [[William Conybeare (geologist)|William Conybeare]] to name the species two years earlier in 1821,<ref name=Conybeare1821>De la Beche, H. T. & W. D. Conybeare. (1821). Notice of the discovery of a new fossil animal, forming a link between the ''[[Ichthyosaurus]]'' and [[crocodile]], together with general remarks on the osteology of the ''Ichthyosaurus''. ''Transactions of the Geological Society of London'' 5: 559–594</ref> and despite being discovered first, Conybeare's remains were not the [[holotype]]; Anning's were.

''Plesiosaurus'' was one of the first of the "[[antediluvian]] reptiles" to be discovered and excited great interest in 19th-century England. It was so-named ("near lizard") by [[William Daniel Conybeare|William Conybeare]] and [[Henry De la Beche]], to indicate that it was more like a normal reptile than ''[[Ichthyosaurus]]'', which had been found in the same rock strata just a few years earlier. ''Plesiosaurus'' is the archetypical genus of Plesiosauria and the first to be described, hence lending its name to the order. Conybeare and De la Beche coined the name for scattered finds from the Bristol region, [[Dorset]], and [[Lyme Regis]] in 1821.<ref name=Conybeare1821 /> The [[type species]] of ''Plesiosaurus'', ''P. dolichodeirus'', was named and described by Conybeare in 1824 on the basis of Anning's original finds.