Brancasaurus fossil map
Where fossils of Brancasaurus have been found, shown on the Earth as it looked about 145 million years ago and on today’s map.
Dots are fossil collections recorded in the Paleobiology Database. The “then” view moves today’s fossil sites back to their positions 145 million years ago (the time slice nearest the median age of the fossils) using the Merdith et al. (2021) plate model; positions are approximate. Open on the timeline map →
| Group | Plesiosaurs & kin |
|---|---|
| Lived | 139.1–137.05 million years ago (Berriasian) |
| Periods | Cretaceous |
| Family | Leptocleididae |
| Named by | Wegner 1914 |
| Fossil records | 1 occurrences at 1 locations (PBDB) |
| Found in | Germany |
| Rock formations | Bückeberg |
About Brancasaurus
Brancasaurus is a genus of plesiosaur that lived during the Berriasian stage of the Early Cretaceous period in what is now Germany. The only known species is B. brancai, first described in 1914 from a relatively complete fossil skeleton discovered four years earlier near Gronau, North Rhine-Westphalia. The scientific name of the taxon honours the German paleontologist Wilhelm von Branca. The holotype skeleton represents the most complete Early Cretaceous plesiosaur specimen known from Europe. Another, more fragmentary skeleton of the same taxon was assigned to the newly erected genus Gronausaurus in 2013, before being recognized as a junior synonym of Brancasaurus in a revision published three years later. Additional specimens assigned or potentially referable to Brancasaurus have been recovered from the type locality and from Lower Saxony, some of which had previously been referred to the genus Plesiosaurus by Ernst Koken.
Text in “About” is quoted from the Wikipedia article Brancasaurus (revision 1368173912), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; introduction excerpted verbatim, formatting removed. Ages, family, authority and fossil records: Paleobiology Database, accessed 23 October 2026. Ages are those of the rock layers the fossils were found in. Wikidata: Q2462014.
