Overview

• The species was formally described in PeerJ Life & Environment by Sven Sachs and Daniel Madzia
• The holotype specimen (SMNS 51945) was excavated from a Holzmaden quarry in 1978 and is now housed at the Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History
• Phylogenetic analysis places Plesionectes longicollum as an early-diverging member of the plesiosauroid lineage
• Remnants of soft tissue around the neck, tail and hindlimbs provide rare insights into plesiosaur anatomy
• At roughly 183 million years old, it is the earliest known plesiosaur from the Posidonia Shale and enhances local plesiosaur diversity