page_title: Liopleurodon
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Liopleurodon / Classification
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Fossil of Liopleurodon - Took the picture at Goldfuß Museum, Bonn University
context_page_description: Liopleurodon is a genus of large, carnivorous marine reptile belonging to the Pliosauroidea, a clade of short-necked plesiosaurs. The two species of Liopleurodon lived from the Callovian Stage of the Middle Jurassic to the Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic Period. It was the apex predator of the Middle to Late Jurassic seas that covered Europe. The largest species, L. ferox, is estimated to have grown up to 6.4 metres in length.
  The name "Liopleurodon" derives from Ancient Greek words: λεῖος leios, "smooth"; πλευρά pleurá, "side" or "rib"; and ὀδόν odṓn, "tooth".
context_section_description: Liopleurodon belongs to the family Pliosauridae, a clade within Plesiosauria, known from the Jurassic (maybe also from the Cretaceous) of Europe and North America.
  Liopleurodon was one of the basal taxa from the Middle Jurassic. Differences between these taxa and their relatives from the Upper Jurassic include alveoli count, smaller skull and smaller body size.
  An analysis in 2013 classifies Liopleurodon, Simolestes, Peloneustes, Pliosaurus, Gallardosaurus, and Brachaucheninae as Thalassophonea.
  The cladogram below follows a 2011 analysis by paleontologists Hilary F. Ketchum and Roger B. J. Benson, and reduced to genera only.
caption: Teeth
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