Ben Creisler
New non-dino papers with free pdfs:
Turfanodon jiufengensis sp. nov.
Liu Jun (2021)
The tetrapod fauna of the upper Permian Naobaogou Formation of China: 6. Turfanodon jiufengensis sp. nov. (Dicynodontia).
PeerJ 9:e10854
doi:
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.10854https://peerj.com/articles/10854/The dicynodont fossils from the Naobaogou Formation of Nei Mongol, China are abundant and diverse but poorly studied. In this article, one nearly complete skeleton and four cranial specimens from the Naobaogou Formation are referred to the dicynodontoid genus Turfanodon as a new species, T. jiufengensis. Previously, Turfanodon was known only from upper Permian sites in Xinjiang and Gansu. The new specimens are referred to Turfanodon based on the following characters: snout tall with steeply sloping profile, anterior tip of the snout squared off, facial region heavily pitted, nasal bosses present as paired swellings near the posterodorsal margin of the external nares, preparietal depressed, intertemporal bar long and narrow, premaxilla contacting frontal, palatal surface of premaxilla exposed in lateral view, and anterior pterygoid keel restricted to the anterior tip of the anterior ramus of the pterygoid. Turfanodon jiufengensis is differentiated from the type species, T. bogdaensis, by a contact of the lacrimal with the septomaxilla, discrete, raised nasal bosses, the dorsal edge of the erupted portion of the canine tusk slightly posterior to the anterior orbital margin, an anterior extension of the lacrimal distinctly shorter than that of the prefrontal, and a premaxillary dorsal surface with a median ridge. The holotype skeleton of T. jiufengensis includes a complete axial column with 50 vertebrae (six cervical, 23 dorsal, six sacral, and 15 caudal). Turfanodon represents the first confirmed tetrapod genus shared by the late Permian faunas of the Junggar and Ordos basins, and appears to be the first dicynodont genus distributed across both tropical and temperate zones (based on paleoclimate reconstructions). Based on tetrapod fossil content, the Naobaogou Formation can be roughly correlated to the Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone of South Africa (255â252 Ma in age).
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The diverse living Australian lizard fauna contrasts greatly with their limited Oligo-Miocene fossil record. New Oligo-Miocene fossil vertebrates from the Namba Formation (south of Lake Frome, South Australia) were uncovered from multiple expeditions from 2007 to 2018. Abundant disarticulated material of small vertebrates was concentrated in shallow lenses along the palaeolake edges, now exposed on the western of Lake Pinpa also known from Billeroo Creek 2 km northeast. The fossiliferous lens within the Namba Formation hosting the abundant aquatic (such as fish, platypus Obdurodon and waterfowl) and diverse terrestrial (such as possums, dasyuromorphs and scincids) vertebrates and is hereafter recognized as the Fish Lens. The stratigraphic provenance of these deposits in relation to prior finds in the area is also established. A new egerniine scincid taxon Proegernia mikebulli sp. nov. described herein, is based on a near-complete reconstructed mandible, maxilla, premaxilla and pterygoid. Postcranial scincid elements were also recovered with this material, but could not yet be confidently associated with P. mikebulli. This new taxon is recovered as the sister species to P. palankarinnensis, in a tip-dated total-evidence phylogenetic analysis, where both are recovered as stem Australian egerniines. These taxa also help pinpoint the timing of the arrival of scincids to Australia, with egerniines the first radiation to reach the continent.
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