Ben Creisler
New synapsid papers:
Agudotherium gassenae, gen. et sp. nov.
Probainognathian cynodonts are well represented in the fossil record from the Middle and Upper Triassic of South America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. In this contribution, we describe a new genus and species of non-mammaliaform prozostrodontian cynodont from southern Brazil. The new taxon comes from the Niemeyer Site, a locality in which the traversodontid cynodont Siriusgnathus niemeyerorum is numerically dominant, whereas probainognathians and other tetrapods are comparatively scarce. The fauna from the Niemeyer Site was putatively assigned to the Riograndia Assemblage Zone (Norian age) recently, although none of the index fossils for that biozone (e.g., Riograndia, Clevosaurus, Jachaleria) have so far been discovered at this locality. The new cynodont taxon is based on a left lower jaw with the canine and six (pc2âpc7) well-preserved postcanines (CAPPA/UFSM 0262, holotype), and a second referred specimen (CAPPA/UFSM 0208, paratype), which includes a right lower jaw with incisors, canine, and seven (pc1âpc7) postcanines, with pc6âpc7 being the best preserved. These specimens have a robust dentary, a long and dorsoventrally tall Meckelian groove, unserrated canines, and unserrated, sectorial postcanine teeth with posteriorly inclined cusps and a poorly developed lingual cingulum. This combination of features is unknown in other Carnian and Norian non-mammaliaform cynodonts. The new taxon contributes to our knowledge of the evolutionary radiation of small prozostrodonts that occurred in western Gondwana during the Late Triassic and led to the emergence of several important cynodont groups, including Mammaliaformes.
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Free pdf:
Christian F. Kammerer, Michol Deutsch, Jacqueline K. Lungmu & Kenneth D. Angielczyk (2020)
Effects of taphonomic deformation on geometric morphometric analysis of fossils: a study using the dicynodont Diictodon feliceps (Therapsida, Anomodontia).
PeerJ 8:e9925
doi:
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9925https://peerj.com/articles/9925/
Taphonomic deformation, the distortion of fossils as a result of geological processes, poses problems for the use of geometric morphometrics in addressing paleobiological questions. Signal from biological variation, such as ontogenetic trends and sexual dimorphism, may be lost if variation from deformation is too high. Here, we investigate the effects of taphonomic deformation on geometric morphometric analyses of the abundant, well known Permian therapsid Diictodon feliceps. Distorted Diictodon crania can be categorized into seven typical styles of deformation: lateral compression, dorsoventral compression, anteroposterior compression, âsaddle-shapeâ deformation (localized collapse at cranial mid-length), anterodorsal shear, anteroventral shear, and right/left shear. In simulated morphometric datasets incorporating known "biological" signals and subjected to uniform shear, deformation was typically the main source of variance but accurate "biological" information could be recovered in most cases. However, in empirical datasets, not only was deformation the dominant source of variance, but little structure associated with allometry and sexual dimorphism was apparent, suggesting that the more varied deformation styles suffered by actual fossils overprint biological variation. In a principal component analysis of all anomodont therapsids, deformed Diictodon specimens exhibit significant dispersion around the âtrueâ position of this taxon in morphospace based on undistorted specimens. The overall variance associated with deformation for Anomodontia as a whole is minor, and the major axes of variation in the study sample show a strong phylogenetic signal instead. Although extremely problematic for studying variation in fossil taxa at lower taxonomic levels, the cumulative effects of deformation in this study are shown to be random, and inclusion of deformed specimens in higher-level analyses of morphological disparity are warranted. Mean morphologies of distorted specimens are found to approximate the morphology of undistorted specimens, so we recommend use of species-level means in higher-level analyses when possible.
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