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Gorgetosuchus, new aetosaur from North Carolina + Wangosaurus, new pistosauroid from China + more new taxa
Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com
A batch of advance papers from the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
are now online:
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showAxaArticles?journalCode=ujvp20#.VMNSNf54p4d
The names are registered with Zoobank.
Here are the ones likely to interest the DML:
Gorgetosuchus pekinensis, new aetosaur from Upper Triassic of North Carolina
Andrew B. Heckert, Vincent P. Schneider, Nicholas C. Fraser & Richard
A. Webb (2015)
A new aetosaur (Archosauria, Suchia) from the Upper Triassic Pekin
Formation, Deep River Basin, North Carolina, U.S.A., and its
implications for early aetosaur evolution.
Journal of Vertebate Paleontology (advance online publication)
DOI:10.1080/02724634.2014.881831
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2014.881831#.VMNPmP54p4c
Aetosaurs are an extinct clade of quadrupedal, heavily armored
archosaurs that had a worldwide distribution during the Late Triassic.
Aetosaur fossils from the Upper Triassic Pekin Formation in the Deep
River Basin of North Carolina (U.S.A.) consist primarily of isolated
osteoderms and, rarely, more associated material. Here we describe a
new genus and species, Gorgetosuchus pekinensis, based on an
associated incomplete anterior carapace, consisting of a total of 19
nearly complete paramedian and lateral osteoderms from the first 10
rows of armor as well as some associated fragments. An important
feature of Gorgetosuchus is that an articulated fifth row of cervical
osteoderms almost encloses the neck, with prominent spines on both the
dorsal and lateral osteoderms. This is a novel configuration among
aetosaurs. Otherwise, NCSM 21723 preserves a mosaic of character
states found in Longosuchus, Lucasuchus, or both taxa while
simultaneously preserving several more plesiomorphic character states,
such as cervical osteoderms that are wider than long. Our reevaluation
of other Pekin Formation specimens that various authors have assigned
to Desmatosuchus, Longosuchus, or Lucasuchus confirms that some
possess characteristics of Lucasuchus, whereas others are not
generically determinate. Incorporating Gorgetosuchus into existing
phylogenies of aetosaurs results in a reshuffling of basal aetosaur
relationships, but a variety of analyses consistently place
Gorgetosuchus as a basal desmatosuchine. Using current taxonomic
practices, there are at least three aetosaur genera in the Pekin
Formation: Lucasuchus, Coahomasuchus, and Gorgetosuchus.
=====
Wangosaurus brevirostris, new pistosauroid from Triassic of China
Le-Tian Ma, Da-Yong Jiang, Olivier Rieppel, Ryosuke Motani & Andrea
Tintori (2015)
A new pistosauroid (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the late Ladinian
Xingyi marine reptile level, southwestern China.
Journal of Vertebate Paleontology (advance online publication)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1080/02724634.2014.881832#.VMNQJP54p4c
Supplement is free
>From text:
Here, we report a new pistosauroid, Wangosaurus brevirostris, gen. et
sp. nov., from the late Middle Triassic of Xingyi, Guizhou Province,
which shows a combination of plesiomorphic and derived characters
(Fig. 1). Due to the rarity of complete and articulated skeletons of
pistosauroids, and the presence of enough unique characters gleaned
from the dorsal view of this specimen to establish a new genus, we
here provide a preliminary description and phylogenetic analysis.
=====
Pachygenys adachii, new lizard species
Tadahiro Ikeda, Hidetoshi Ota & Haruo Saegusa (2015)
A new fossil lizard from the Lower Cretaceous Sasayama Group of Hyogo
prefecture, western Honshu, Japan.
Journal of Vertebate Paleontology (advance online publication)
DOI:10.1080/02724634.2014.885032
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2014.885032#.VMNQ7f54p4c
A new fossil lizard of the genus Pachygenys is described on the basis
of a single, partially broken right mandible excavated from an unnamed
formation of the Lower Cretaceous Sasayama Group in Hyogo Prefecture,
western Honshu, Japan. The mandible exclusively shares a few
apparently highly specialized morphological features, such as distinct
foreshortening of the dentary tooth row and reduced dentary tooth
number (nine), with Pachygenys thlastesa, the type species of the
genus from the Lower Cretaceous of eastern China. However, the new
species differs from the latter in having a shorter tooth row,
anterior and middle teeth with unicuspid crowns (vs. bluntly truncated
crowns in the latter), and posterior teeth with unicuspid and simple
conical crowns (vs. bluntly truncated crowns in the latter). The
specimen described here represents the first unequivocal fossil record
of lizards in Japan, with its congeneric species occurring almost
concurrently in eastern Eurasia.
======================
Vertebrata PalAsiatica also has begun publishing advance online papers.
http://www.ivpp.cas.cn/cbw/gjzdwxb/pressonline/
This one may interest the DML:
Nothogomphodon sanjiaoensis, new therocephalian species
LIU Jun & Fernando ABDALA (2015)
New discoveries from the Sinokannemeyeria-Shansisuchus Assemblage
Zone: 2. A new species of Nothogomphodon (Therapsida: Therocephalia)
from the Ermaying Formation of Shanxi, China.
Vertebrate PalAsiatica (advance online publication)[53(2)]
http://www.ivpp.cas.cn/cbw/gjzdwxb/pressonline/201501/t20150121_4302630.html
Free pdf:
http://www.ivpp.cas.cn/cbw/gjzdwxb/pressonline/201501/P020150122492510643000.pdf
A new therocephalian specimen collected from the upper part of the
Ermaying Formation of Liulin, Shanxi, China is named as Nothogomphodon
sanjiaoensis sp. nov. This new species is differentiated from the type
species Nothogomphodon danilovi by the following characters: dentary
lower margin uneven; canine base is ovate rather than rounded;
distinct diastema present between canine and first postcanine; absence
of accessory cutting cusps on posterior border of the postcanines.
Nothogomphodon has a postcanine morphology that resembles that of
sectorial toothed basal cynodonts, which is the only evidence of
therocephalians having developed this kind of complex sectorial
dentition. Faunal analysis between the Russian Eryosuchus fauna and
the Chinese Sinokannemeyeria-Shansisuchus Assemblage indicates that
only Nothogomphodon is common to both faunas, whereas there is no
common genus shared between the Chinese Ermaying and Karamayi
formations. Therocephalians were present at a moderate level of
diversity in Middle Triassic faunas from Laurasia, whereas
nonmammaliaform cynodonts are only represented by two taxa.
Conversely, in Gondwana cynodonts experienced an explosion in
diversity in the Middle Triassic with the evolution of Gomphodontia,
while therocephalians were scarcely represented in faunas of this age.
V