Wiman's forgotten plesiosaurs: the earliest recorded sauropterygian fossils from the High Arctic

Abstract

The first detailed reports of sauropterygian remains from the Arctic island of Spitsbergen (Svalbard Archipelago) were published as short notes in 1914 and 1916 by the eminent Swedish palaeontologist Carl Wiman. Since then, his original specimens have languished in obscurity despite recent discoveries renewing interest in the Scandinavian polar territories as a highly significant source of Mesozoic marine amniote fossils. A reassessment of Wiman's Spitsbergen collection housed in the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University, Sweden, has identified a pistosaurid vertebral centrum from probable Upper Triassic (Carnian) sediments in the Tschermakfjellet Formation, and various plesiosaurian elements including a previously undocumented partial skeleton most likely derived from the restricted Upper Jurassic (Tithonian) bone bed of the Slottsmøya Member, Agardhfjellet Formation. Although fragmentary, Wiman's sauropterygian fossils are historically important and comprise one of the oldest stratigraphical occurrences from the Mesozoic Boreal high-latitude region of Europe.

Keywords:

• Plesiosauria
• Pistosauridae
• Spitsbergen
• Svalbard Archipelago
• Late Triassic
• Late Jurassic

Acknowledgements

Jan Ove R. Ebbestad and Vivianne Berg-Madsen (the Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University) and Simon Kelley (CASP) generously assisted with access to specimens and historical information. Espen M. Knutsen (University of Oslo) supplied copies of his unpublished thesis data. Thanks to Nathalie Bardet (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle) and Patrick Druckenmiller (University of Alaska, Museum of the North) for their constructive reviews. Michael Streng (Uppsala University) provided timely editorial handling. The Palaeobiology Programme at the Uppsala University, Natural Sciences and Energy Research Council of Canada and an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship (EEM) provided financial support for this research.