Paleontologists have described a model new genus and species of trogonophid amphisbaenian (worm lizard) from fossilized specimens current in Tunisia.
Life reconstruction of Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi in a position to prey on a giant snail of the family Bulimulidae. Image credit score rating: Jaime Chirinos.
Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi lived in what’s now Africa by means of the Eocene epoch, some 47 million years up to now.
The model new species belongs to Trogonophidaea small family of limbless, carnivorous, lizard-like reptiles contained in the clade Amphisbaenia.
“Amphisbaenians are a charismatic group of fossorial squamates, with bizarre morphological choices and extreme anatomical modifications,” acknowledged lead creator Dr. Georgios Georgalis from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals on the Polish Academy of Sciences and his colleagues.
“Notably, their distinctive skeletal anatomy has attracted and puzzled researchers as a result of the nineteenth century.”
“Sooner than the looks and broad acceptance of phylogenetic systematics, amphisbaenians have been considered to be the third primary group of Squamata, together with Serpentes and the paraphyletic ‘Lacertilia’.”
“Present phylogenetic analyses, nonetheless, have positioned them as a result of the sister group of lacertid lizards, a topology that has been supported by every molecular and combined morphological and molecular proof: a fame, Lacertibaenia, was even proposed for the clade Amphisbaenia + Lacertidae.”
“Amphisbaenians have a relatively rich fossil doc all through the Cenozoic of Europe and North America, coupled with only a few Neogene and Quaternary occurrences from South America, only a few Palaeogene, Neogene, and Quaternary occurrences from Africa, a only some Neogene occurrences from the Arabian Peninsula, and a only some occurrences from the Neogene of southwestern Asia.”
“Trogonophidae are a fairly distinctive group of amphisbaenians which could be at current distributed in northern and north-central Africa (along with Socotra Island, Yemen) and the Heart East,” they added.
“4 dwelling genera are in the intervening time acknowledged, i.e. Agamodon, Diplometopon, Pachycalamusand the sort genus, Trogonophis.”
Basically probably the most distinctive attribute of trogonophids is their acrodont dentition, a attribute that, inside squamates, is in every other case present solely throughout the iguanian group Acrodonta.”
“Trogonophids moreover possess totally different distinctive choices amongst amphisbaenians, along with locomotion and burrowing patterns, shoulder girdle or hemipenial morphology, chromosomes, vertebral affiliation, the absence of caudal autotomy, and a triangular physique in cross-section.”
Quite a few specimens of Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi have been found at a fossil-bearing locality throughout the Pure Park of Djebel Chambi in Tunisia.
“The Djebel Chambi Nationwide Park is situated throughout the Kasserine area, throughout the Central Western part of Tunisia,” the paleontologists acknowledged.
“The material of this look at comes from a fossil-bearing web site (Chambi locus 1), which consists of fluvio-lacustrine deposits situated on the bottom of the continental sequence of Chambi.”
“These localities have yielded a varied assemblage of aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates, along with fishes, amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, squamates, birds, and mammals, comparable to bats, primates, eulipotyphlans, hyaenodonts, hyracoids, an elephant shrew, a marsupial, a rodent, and a sirenian.”
Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi was over 90 cm (35 inches) in dimension, making it the largest recognized amphisbaenian to ever keep.
“Amongst extant amphisbaenians, Amphisbaena alba is the largest species, reaching a most complete dimension of 81 cm (32 inches) and a skull dimension of over 3.1 cm (1.2 inches),” the researchers acknowledged.
Nearly all dwelling amphisbaenians signify burrowing animals, which appear solely not usually on the ground, outdoor their subsurface environments.
Nevertheless, certain choices in Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi seem to contradict this pure historic previous pattern and counsel instead that the normal species was liable to be a flooring dweller.
That’s further supported by the extraordinary measurement of Terastiodontosaurus marcelosancheziwhich could render subsurface habits as a lot much less attainable.
“Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi represents a substantial contribution to the to date poorly recognized African fossil doc of Amphisbaenia, representing solely the fifth named extinct species from the continent,” the scientists concluded.
“Moreover, the model new supplies from Chambi gives further to the terribly poor fossil doc of Trogonophidae.”
The model new species is described in a paper printed this week throughout the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
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Georgios L. Georgalis et al. 2024. The world’s largest worm lizard: a model new large trogonophid (Squamata: Amphisbaenia) with extreme dental variations from the Eocene of Chambi, Tunisia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 202 (3): zlae133; doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae133