Leptocleididae
family of reptiles (fossil)
Leptocleididae is a family of small-sized plesiosaurs that lived during the Early Cretaceous period (early Berriasian to early Albian stage). They had small bodies with small heads and short necks. Leptocleidus and Umoonasaurus had round bodies and triangle-shaped heads. Leptocleidids have been found in what were shallow nearshore, freshwater and brackish habitats. Hilary F. Ketchum and Roger B. J. Benson (2010), transferred Brancasaurus, Kaiwhekea, Nichollssaura and Thililua to this family. However, Ketchum and Benson (2011) reassigned Kaiwhekea and Thililua to their original positions, as an elasmosaurid and a polycotylid, respectively.
“Leptocleididae” enters the record as family of reptiles (fossil). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Leptocleididae, family and reptiles can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Leptocleididae” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Leptocleididae, family and reptiles provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1028195. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2010 and 2011.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leptocleididae” 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.