British Mid Jurassic fossil reptile sites

Abstract

Fossil reptiles have been found in numerous localities in the Mid Jurassic (Aalenian-Callovian) of southern England and west Scotland, but the most productive sources for reptiles are mainly in rocks of Bathonian and Callovian age. The typically shallow-water lagoonal and littoral marine facies of the Bathonian (e.g. Forest Marble) have produced many important finds of dinosaurs, pterosaurs and mammal-like reptiles (some of the last of this group in the world), in addition to marine reptiles, while the Callovian Oxford Clay is famous for its plesiosaur remains, which occur throughout the outcrop. Fuller details of British Jurassic geology, reptile evolution worldwide and British Jurassic sites are given in the introduction to Chapter 5.