In Depth Simorhinella is a genus of therocephalian therapsid that lived in South Africa during the Permian. Simorhinella is noteworthy for having a snout that by proportion to relative genera is considerably shorter and deeper. This may have allowed Simorhinella to have a very strong bite force as the deeper snout would have been able … Read more
In Depth Named from a thirteen centimetre long skull, Eoarctops seems to have been a particularly small genus of gorgonopsid. The skull is noted for being particularly broad at the back with a short snout, suggesting morphological adaptations for a proportionately high bite for tis size. This is because there would be room for larger … Read more
In Depth Because of a current lack of fossils for this genus, the only thing that can be said with any certainty is that Kerberosaurus was a saurolophine hadrosaurid, the group of hadrosaurs noted to have solid head crests like those of Saurolophus. The skull remains of Kerberosaurus were discovered in a bone bed of … Read more
In Depth Tethysaurus is a primitive (basal) mosasaur that is considered to be related to Russelosaurus from North America and Yaguarasaurus from South America. Like these other two mosasaurs, Tethysaurus has a mixture of both primitive and advanced features that make it a primitive relative to other later mosasaur groups, although not as primitive as … Read more
In Depth Named in 2014, not much can be said about Surameryx because the genus has been named from just a lower left jaw. However, by being recovered from a late Miocene aged deposit, we do know that the presence of Surameryx in South America is a rare example of a mammal with North American … Read more
In Depth At the time of the description in 2017, Zuul was the best preserved ankylosaurine ankylosaur ever found in North America. Not only was the skull and post cranial skeleton mostly complete, many of the armoured plates that adorned its back were still present. The type species name, Z. crurivastator, is Latin and basically … Read more
In Depth In 1937 a fossil collector named Allan Bennison discovered mosasaur fossils in California’s Mount Diablo Range. These fossils were first described by Charles Camp in 1942 and published as Kolposaurus; however this name is actually preoccupied as a synonym for Nothosaurus, hence the naming revision to Plotosaurus in 1951. The original fossils were … Read more
In Depth Pristerognathoides is a therocephalian therapsid noted for its similarity to the genus Pristerognathus. Further Reading Further reading- The pristerognathid therocephalians from the Tapinocephalus-zone in the South African Museum. – Annals of the South African Museum 42:65-107. – L. D. Boonstra – 1954.
In Depth Richard Owen described Titanosuchus from a set of teeth, although if he realised that what he named was not actually a crocodile he may have wanted to give Titanosuchus a more anatomically correct name, like he tried to do with the pterosaur Ornithocheirus, and the prehistoric predatory whale Basilosaurus. Instead Titanosuchus was one … Read more
In Depth With fossils going back to the mid Jurassic, it comes as no surprise that Huayangosaurus is a more primitive stegosaur than better known genera from the late Jurassic. The skull of Huayangosaurus is broader than later forms which reveals it was not as well adapted to selective browsing. The premaxilla also still has … Read more