Peloneustes is a genus of pliosaurid plesiosaur from the Middle Jurassic of England, known from the Oxford Clay Formation. Its sole species was originally named Plesiosaurus philarchus by Harry Govier Seeley in 1869 before Richard Lydekker gave it its own genus in 1889. It is known from many specimens, some very complete. It had a total length of 3.5 to 4 metres (11 to 13 ft), and a large, triangular skull elongated into a narrow snout with conical teeth. The two sides of its mandible (lower jaw) were fused into a long symphysis at the front. Its neck was short for a plesiosaur and its limbs were modified into flippers, with the back pair larger than the front. Peloneustes is classified in Thalassophonea with other short-necked pliosaurids. It was well-adapted to aquatic life, using its flippers for swimming, and its skull was reinforced against the stresses of feeding. Peloneustes's long, narrow snout could have been swung through the water to catch fish with its sharp teeth.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloneustes

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1535:

Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes (present-day Lima, Peru) as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish crown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lima

1788:

The armed tender HMS Supply, the first ship of the First Fleet, arrived at Botany Bay, Australia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Supply_%281759%29

1958:

Willie O'Ree of the Boston Bruins played his first game in the National Hockey League, becoming the first black Canadian to compete in the NHL. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_O%27Ree

1990:

In a sting operation conducted by the FBI, Marion Barry, the mayor of Washington, D.C., was arrested for possession of crack cocaine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Barry

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

endian: (computing) Preceded by a qualifying word: of a computer: storing multibyte numbers with the most significant byte at a particular memory address; for example, at the smallest address (big-endian) or the largest address (little-endian). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/endian

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on Earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.   --Daniel Webster https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Daniel_Webster