New remains of Liopleurodon (Reptilia, Plesiosauria) from the Middle Jurassic of western France and paedomorphosis within pliosaurids
Bibliographic record
Abstract
A new specimen of the pliosaurid Liopleurodon ferox from the Callovian strata (Middle Jurassic) of France is described. This new specimen represents one of the most-complete post-cranial skeletons known for this species. Remains of Liopleurodon ferox were previously reported from central and southern England, Germany, the North of France, and possibly from Poland and Russia. The specimen examined here therefore extends the biogeographical area of the species into central France and represents the southernmost occurrence of this taxon. Based on osteological evidence, the specimen is here identified as an “adult” individual, confirming that the lack of fusion between the cervical neural arches and associated centra is not a reliable indicator of a juvenile condition in pliosaurids. Instead, such a lack of fusion in cervical vertebrae is more likely to be paedomorphic in adult pliosaurids, as noted in previous works. However, this statement does not hold true for dorsal and caudal vertebrae, or cervical ribs, in which the pattern of suture closure may vary according to taxa. Overall, our results indicate that the open or closed conditions of the neurocentral sutures of all the vertebrae of the vertebral column, as well as the suture between ribs and centra, is a poor indicator of ontogenetic stages in pliosaurids.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".