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ABSTRACT
Brevicaudosaurus jiyangshanensis, gen. et sp. nov., a new nothosauroid, is established on the basis of two nearly complete skeletons from the Middle Triassic (Ladinian) of China. Its skull is diagnostic in having a wide and constricted snout, a large supratemporal fossa slightly larger than the orbit, and a parietal table strongly constricted posteriorly. Postcranial specializations include a short trunk with 14 dorsal vertebrae, a short tail shorter than the skull-neck region in length, a stout anterolateral process on the clavicle, an extremely massive and broadened mid-diaphysis of the humerus, a strongly expanded proximal head of the ulna, seven ossified carpals, and a phalangeal reduction in the pes. In addition, the strongly pachyostotic postcranial skeleton may indicate a slow mode of swimming underwater and a benthic carnivorous feeding habit for B. jiyangshanensis. Phylogenetically, it is the sister taxon of the Nothosaurus-Lariosaurus clade within Nothosauroidea. The discovery of this new nothosauroid not only contributes to local faunal diversity and expands the known range of sauropterygian life styles during the late Middle Triassic, but also provides a chance to test the phylogenetic relationships of the Eosauropterygia hypothesized by previous studies.
http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:026D8680-CC71-47BD-A681-F5B6F140B84
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Y.-F. Chen for his skillful preparation of the specimens used in this paper, W. Gao for photographic work, L.-T. Wang for field assistance, D.-Y. Jiang for providing references related to his work, and S. J. Rufolo for editorial and linguistic assistance. We also want to thank two anonymous referees who reviewed the manuscript, offering critical comments and suggestions that led to its great improvement. The research was supported by grants from the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB26000000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41372028), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (cash in kind), and Canadian Museum of Nature (RS09).