Brachypterygius

Brachypterygius is a medium-sized ichthyosaur, with a skull length of and a body length up to . The snout is long, as is characteristic for ichthyosaurs, with larger and more robust teeth, and a relatively smaller eye than Ophthalmosaurus. The basioccipital has a very narrow extracondylar area. The forepaddle may have five or six digits, with the maximum phalangeal count being between 8 and 16. A key feature is the three facets at the distal end of the humerus; the middle is the smallest and articulates with the intermedium, which clearly separates Brachypterygius from Ophthalmosaurus, the most common Late Jurassic ichthyosaur. == Taxonomy ==

The holotype of Brachypterygius extremus is a single right forepaddle, clearly different from other Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs (e.g. Ophthalmosaurus). Species previously assigned to Brachypterygius Owen (1840) erected Ichthyosaurus trigonus based upon a single dorsal vertebra (ANSP 10124) from the Kimmeridge Clay of Westbrook, Wiltshire, UK. The holotype was long thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in 1988. Many specimens were referred to Ichthyosaurus trigonus; Bauer (1898) suggested that – what are now – Ophthalmosaurus, Brachypterygius and Nannopterygius should be synonymised into Ichthyosaurus trigonus. I. trigonus was included in the new genus Macropterygius by Huene (1922), who later (1923) made it the type species of the genus. Nowadays, I. trigonus (and hence Macropterygius) is a nomen dubium because its holotype is indistinguishable from other ophthalmosaurids. (Christopher McGowan and Ryosuke Motani mistakenly stated that I. trigonus may be synonymous with Ophthalmosaurus icenicus McGowan and Motani (2003) considered it to be a species of Brachypterygius, In 2020, Nikolay Zverkov and Dmitry Grigoriev reassigned this species to Maiaspondylus. A large skull was discovered in the Kimmeridge Clay of Stowbridge, Norfolk, UK and named as a new genus and species, Grendelius mordax, by McGowan in 1976. ==Phylogeny==

The following cladogram shows a possible phylogenetic position of Brachypterygius in Ophthalmosauridae according to the analysis performed by Zverkov and Jacobs (2020). }} ==See also==