Justin B. Delair

R.F. Vaughan

Academic paper

Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine

85

121-127

Remains of plesiosaurs of Portlandian age (Upper Jurassic), although long known from various sites in Buckinghamshire (Lydekker 1905, 26), Dorset (Delair 1958, 62, 67, 70, 83), North Yorkshire (erroneously: Fox=Strangways 1892, table), and Oxfordshire (Anon. 1838, 608), as well as from Tisbury in Wiltshire (Woodward and Sherborn 1890, 220), have not until now been reported from Swindon, where Portland Stone formerly yielded numerous fossils. This negative Swindon record is somewhat surprising in view of (i) the essentially marine character of the Portland formation generally and the overwhelming majority of invertebrate fossils found in it, (ii) the extreme adaptations of plesiosaurs to an habitually aquatic existence (Figure 1), and (iii) the occurrence of plesiosaur remains at virtually all other major Portlandian exposures.
The present paper records the first definite evidence of these interesting extinct reptiles from the Portland beds at Swindon.

English