Cricosaurus albersdoerferi, Sachs & Young & Abel & Mallison, 2021

Sachs, Sven, Young, Mark T., Abel, Pascal & Mallison, Heinrich, 2021, A new species of Cricosaurus (Thalattosuchia, Metriorhynchidae) based upon a remarkably well-preserved skeleton from the Upper Jurassic of Germany, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 24) 24 (2), pp. 1-28 : 5

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.26879/928

publication LSID

lsid:zoobank.org:pub:2667E3D2-BC97-48C5-89B6-C5AD87C10D82

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/53679A64-7EC2-49D2-A222-D3103FDDDD84

taxon LSID

lsid:zoobank.org:act:53679A64-7EC2-49D2-A222-D3103FDDDD84

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Cricosaurus albersdoerferi
status

sp. nov.

Cricosaurus albersdoerferi sp. nov.

Figures 1 View FIGURE 1 , 3-7 View FIGURE 3 View FIGURE 4 View FIGURE 5 View FIGURE 6 View FIGURE 7

zoobank.org/ 53679A64-7EC2-49D2-A222-D3103FDDDD84

Holotype. BMMS-BK 1-2 , almost complete articulated skeleton ( Figure 1 View FIGURE 1 ).

Type locality. Rygol quarry, Painten, Bavaria, Germany.

Type formation. Arnstorf Member, Torleite Formation.

Type horizon. Lithacoceras ulmense Subzone , Hybonoticeras beckeri Tethyian ammonite Zone, upper Kimmeridgian, Upper Jurassic.

Geological provenance. Upper Jurassic. Lithacoceras ulmense Subzone , Hybonoticeras beckeri Tethyian ammonite Zone, upper Kimmeridgian.

Etymology. The species epithet albersdoerferi honours palaeontologist Raimund Albersdörfer for making the specimen available to science.

Diagnosis. A member of Cricosaurus with the following unique combination of characters (proposed autapomorphic characters are indicated by an asterisk *): bicarinate dentition, lacking conspicuous enamel ornamentation; tooth crowns in premaxilla, maxilla and dentary distinctly labiolingually compressed (shared with C. bambergensis , C. elegans , and C. suevicus ); presence of pronounced reception pits for dentary tooth crowns on the lateral margins of the anterior and mid-maxilla (shared with C. bambergensis ); presence of pronounced reception pits on the lateral margins of the middle dentary*; morphology of the tail displacement unit: the distal-most six preflexural vertebrae are very strongly posteriorly inclined and lie on top of the prezygapophyses of the adjacent vertebra with their posterior margins; the distal-most preflexural vertebra lacks the rod-like neural spine present in C. suevicus (SMNS 9808).

Cricosaurus albersdoerferi and C. suevicus share the following synapomorphies: (1) dorsal vertebrae neural spines are rectangular in lateral view; (2) almost all dorsal neural spines have flat dorsal margins; (3) the distal-most preflexural vertebra has a dorsoventrally deep hemapophysis, with a midline flange (i.e., unlike the rod-shaped hemapophysis as in C. bambergensis NKMB-PWatt14/274 and Rhacheosaurus gracilis NHMUK PV R 3948 – see Sachs et al., 2019); (4) the five-six proximal-most flexural caudal vertebrae have strongly anteriorly oriented neural spines (more prominently than in C. bambergensis NKMB-PWatt14/274, R. gracilis NHMUK PV R 3948 and Thalattosuchus superciliosus GPIT-PV-31379); and (5) the flexural hemapophyses contact one another along their posteroventral-anterodorsal margins (not along their posterior-anterior margins as in C. bambergensis NKMB-P-Watt14/274, R. gracilis NHMUK PV R 3948 and T. superciliosus GPIT-PV-31379).

Darwin Core Archive (for parent article) View in SIBiLS Plain XML RDF