Plesiosauria Plesiosauria The Plesiosauria (; Greek: πλησίος, "plesios", meaning "near to" and "sauros", meaning "lizard") or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of Mesozoic marine reptiles (marine Sauropsida), belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period, possibly in the Rhaetian stage, about 203 million years ago. They became especially common during the Jurassic Period, thriving until their disappearance due to the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous Period, about 66 million years ago. They had a worldwide oceanic distribution. Plesiosaurs were among the first fossil reptiles discovered. In the beginning of the nineteenth century,
Triassic amphibians, the first Lissamphibia, progenitors of first frogs, are known from the Early Triassic, but the group as a whole did not become common until the Jurassic, when the temnospondyls had become very rare. Other survivors the Chroniosuchia and Embolomeri were more closely related to amniotes than temnospondyls. Those became extinct after some million years. Most of the Reptiliomorpha, stem-amniotes that gave rise to the amniotes, disappeared in Triassic, but two water-dwelling groups survived; Embolomeri that only survived into the early part of the period, and the Chroniosuchia, which survived until the end of Triassic. Archosauromorph reptiles, especially archosaurs, progressively