Jucha
species of reptile (fossil)
Jucha is an extinct genus of plesiosaur found in the Hauterivian (Early Cretaceous) Klimovka Formation of Russia. The type species, J. squalea, was one of the basalmost and oldest definitive elasmosaurs known to date.
Discovery and naming
The holotype specimen, UPM 2756/1-53, housed on display at the Undorov Pleontological Museum, was discovered in 2007 in a layer of the Klimovka Formation in the vicinity of the Slantsevy Rudnik village near Ulyanovsk, European Russia. It consists of 17 cervical vertebrae, nine dorsal vertebrae and one isolated neural spine, four caudal vertebrae, and parts of the forelimbs and hindlimbs.
The new genus and species Jucha squalea was described in 2020 by Fisher et al. The genus is named after Jucha, a girl in Turkic demonology who has snake skin, can turn into a dragon, has lived for a thousand years, and can take off her head. This refers to the lack of a skull in the holotype. The holotype was preserved in a mineral crust composed of mainly pyrite, hence the specific epithet squalea, a Latin word meaning "coated" or "rugose".
Description
When fully grown, Jucha grew up to around 5 metres (16 ft) long.
“Jucha” enters the record as species of reptile (fossil). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jucha, species and reptile can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Jucha” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jucha, species and reptile provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q100673073. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2007 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jucha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.