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| Notosphenos finisterre Agnolín, Rolando, Manabe, Tsuihiji & Novas, 2024 |
ABSTRACT
The aim of the present contribution is to describe new materials of lepidosaur reptiles coming from the late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Chorrillo Formation, at Santa Cruz province, Argentina. The lepidosaur assemblage is composed by four different snakes (belonging to basal snakes, madtsoiids, and ‘anilioids’) and a tuatara sphenodont. The latter is a new genus and species represented by an incomplete maxilla that shows strong ties to extant Sphenodon. The snakes are represented by isolated vertebrae that indicate they belong to basal forms. Both are very apomorphic and in all probability are the representatives of poorly known lineages. In contrast with recent claims, the fact that most members of this lepidosaur assemblage are highly apomorphic may be indicative of some biogeographical isolation from other Cretaceous lepidosaur associations reported from northern Patagonia.
KEYWORDS: Lepidosauria, sphenodontidae, “anilioidea”, madtsoiidae, basal snakes
Lepidosauria Dúmeril and Bibron, 1839
Rhynchocephalia Gray, 1842
Sphenodontidae Günther, 1867
Sphenodontinae Cope, 1871 (sensu Reynoso, 1996)
Notosphenos finisterre gen. et sp. nov.
Holotype: MPM-PV-23097, incomplete right maxilla preserving two completeand one partial teeth. The specimen comes from the ‘Monotremesite’ (Figure 2).
Etymology: Notosphenos comes from the Greek. The word ‘Noto’ means ‘South’ and ‘Sphenos’ means ‘Wedge’ but also refers to the general termsapplied to Tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) and all its kin. The word finisterre, from the Latin, refers to the ‘end of the earth’.
Federico Agnolín, Mauro Aranciaga Rolando, Makoto Manabe, Takanobu Tsuihiji and Fernando E. Novas. 2024. Southernmost Lepidosaur (Reptilia) assemblage from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia. Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology. DOI: doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2024.2341850
https://www.macnconicet.gob.ar/10147-2/
