Askeptosaurus

Askeptosaurus is an extinct genus of askeptosauroid, a marine reptile from the extinct order Thalattosauria. Askeptosaurus is known from several well-preserved fossils found in Middle Triassic marine strata in what is now Italy and Switzerland.

==History of discovery== Askeptosaurus, and its only known species Askeptosaurus italicus, were first named and described in 1925 by Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa von Felső-Szilvás. It was most recently redescribed by Dr. Johannes Müller in 2005. Askeptosaurus is known from several disarticulated and articulated skeletons preserved at the MSNM (Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano) in Milan, Italy, and the PIMUZ (Paläontologisches Institut und Museum der Universität Zürich, Paleontological Institute and of the University of Zurich) in Zurich, Switzerland. These specimens were discovered in the Grenzbitumenzone of Monte San Giorgio, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the Swiss-Italian border. Also known as the Besano Formation in Italy, the Grenzbitumenzone has produced many well-preserved fossils from the Anisian-Ladinian boundary within the Middle Triassic.