A new species of Pseudopus (Squamata, Anguidae) from the early Miocene of Northwest Bohemia (Czech Republic)

ABSTRACT

Three species of the genus Pseudopus are recognized in the Cenozoic of Eurasia: P. laurillardi (early–middle Miocene of Europe), P. pannonicus (late Miocene–middle Pleistocene of Central and Eastern Europe), and P. apodus (late Pleistocene–Recent, from Eastern Europe to Central Asia). Here, a new and oldest species of the genus Pseudopus, P. ahnikoviensis, sp. nov., is described from the early Miocene (MN 3) locality Merkur in Northwest Bohemia in the Czech Republic. The new species is distinguished from the other three species of the genus Pseudopus by five possible autapomorphies: length of sulcus between frontal and frontoparietal shields equals length of sulcus between frontal and interfrontal shields; ornamented surface of parietal consisting of densely arranged and very fine ridges, grooves, and pits; ventrolateral ridge of supratemporal process of parietal coincides with lateral margin of supratemporal process, hence no free ventrolateral surface of supratemporal process present; presence of surangular spine of dentary; and apices of crowns of robust bulbous teeth smooth. Pseudopus ahnikoviensis is most similar to P. laurillardi and represents the smallest species in the genus Pseudopus.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am very indebted to O. Fejfar (Charles University in Prague) and Z. Dvořák (North Bohemian Mine Corp., Bílina) for the possibility to study the material described in this paper. I thank Z. Roček (Charles University in Prague) and B. Ekrt (National Museum, Prague) for access to the Miocene anguine material deposited in their institutions and used for comparisons with those studied in this paper. For access to the lizards of Sansan and other French localities, I thank D. Goujet and J.-C. Rage (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris). For the possibility to study the British anguine specimens deposited in the Natural History Museum in London, I thank Angela C. Milner and S. Chapman and S. Evans (University College, London). The SEM photographs (Figs. 4A and 8A, B) were produced by N. Halašiová (Geological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Banská Bystrica). The photographs in Figures 6 and 7B, D were taken by K. Dobiašová (Department of Ecology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Bratislava) and those in Figure 3A–H were provided by J. Kotús (Bratislava). All other photographs were taken by P. Hurst and H. Taylor in the Natural History Museum, London. The drawing in Figures 1D and 3K were made by I. Kolebaba (Prague) and those in Figures 2C, 7A, C and 3J, L, 8C, D were made by M. Mikudíková and I. Koubová, respectively (Comenius University in Bratislava). I acknowledge the thorough reviews of two referees, M. Borsuk-Bialynicka (Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences) and J. Conrad (Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University). This project was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences, grant no. 1/0131/12.

Handling editor: Johannes Müller