Colobops: a juvenile rhynchocephalian reptile (Lepidosauromorpha), not a diminutive archosauromorph with an unusually strong bite.

ABSTRACT: Correctly identifying taxa at the root of major clades or the oldest clade-representatives is critical for meaningful interpretations of evolution. A small, partially crushed skull from the Late Triassic (Norian) of Connecticut, USA, originally described as an indeterminate rhynchocephalian saurian, was recently named Colobops noviportensis and reinterpreted as sister to all remaining Rhynchosauria, one of the earliest and globally distributed groups of herbivorous reptiles. It was also interpreted as having an exceptionally reinforced snout and powerful bite based on an especially large supratemporal fenestra. Here, after a re-analysis of the original scan data, we show that the skull was strongly dorsoventrally compressed post-mortem, with most bones out of life position. The cranial ana

SUBMITTER: Scheyer TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7137947 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature