Late Cretaceous (Campanian—Maastrichtian) marine reptiles from the Adaffa Formation, NW Saudi Arabia

Kear, Benjamin P.; Rich, Thomas H.; Ali, M. A.; Al-Mufarrih, Yahya A.; Matiri, Adel H.; Masary, A. M.; Attia, Yousry

doi:10.1017/s0016756808005062

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The skeletal anatomy of Tenerasaurus agrees in all observable respects with the generic diagnosis of the genus Prognathodon 33 and is therefore referred to that taxon here. This taxonomic reassignment is also supported by the fact that Prognathodon is represented by numerous larger individuals in the MCMF 25 and more broadly in the Middle East and Africa 34,35 . structures that may still be hidden in the matrix, and over the course of two days the tail of ERMNH HFV 197 was prepared using small chisels and a pneumatic microscribe.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Soft tissue preservation in a fossil marine lizard with a bilobed tail fin

Lindgren

Kaddumi²,

Polcyn

2013

Nat Commun

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Mosasaurs are secondarily aquatic squamates that became the dominant marine reptiles in the Late Cretaceous about 98-66 million years ago. Although early members of the group possessed body shapes similar to extant monitor lizards, derived forms have traditionally been portrayed as long, sleek animals with broadened, yet ultimately tapering tails. Here we report an extraordinary mosasaur fossil from the Maastrichtian of Harrana in central Jordan, which preserves soft tissues, including high fidelity outlines of a caudal fluke and flippers. This specimen provides the first indisputable evidence that derived mosasaurs were propelled by hypocercal tail fins, a hypothesis that was previously based on comparative skeletal anatomy alone. Ecomorphological comparisons suggest that derived mosasaurs were similar to pelagic sharks in terms of swimming performance, a finding that significantly expands our understanding of the level of aquatic adaptation achieved by these seagoing lizards.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 76%

Soft tissue preservation in a fossil marine lizard with a bilobed tail fin

Lindgren

Kaddumi²,

Polcyn

2013

Nat Commun

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“…The Dyrosauridae represent a monophyletic group of crocodylomorphs that radiated in the marine environment during the Cretaceous. Their earliest record dates from the Late Cretaceous with mentions from the Campanian (Churcher and Russell, 1992; Lamanna et al, 2004; Kear et al, 2008; Salih et al, 2015) or from undetermined Late Cretaceous levels (Sertich et al, 2006) and perhaps from levels as old as the Cenomanian (Buffetaut and Lauverjat, 1978). The group survived through the end Cretaceous biological crisis and became extinct during the early Eocene, most probably during the Ypresian (Buffetaut, 1978a, 1982; Hill et al, 2008; Martin et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A dyrosaurid from the Paleocene of Senegal

Martin¹,

Sarr²,

Hautier³

2018

J. Paleontol.

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We describe a partial dyrosaurid skeleton recently prepared out of a limestone block discovered in the 1930s from Danian strata along the Atlantic coast of Senegal. The specimen, from a single individual, comprises nicely preserved elements of the appendicular and axial skeleton from the abdominal and sacral region, which enables us to refine our knowledge on some postcranial characteristics of the Dyrosauridae. Although Dyrosauridae are abundant in early Eocene deposits of North Africa, the present discovery in the Danian of Senegal fills a patchier record early after the K/Pg boundary and provides an important comparative data point with the few other Danian dyrosaurid records such as Atlantosuchus from nearby Morocco or Guarinisuchus and Hyposaurus from Brazil and the USA, respectively.

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“…records of lungfish fossils from the Arabian Peninsula include only Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian; Kear et al, 2008) and Paleogene (late Paleocene; Whitmore, 1995) occurrences. The discovery of a dipnoan in the Middle Triassic Jilh Formation is therefore significant, both as an extension of the group's stratigraphic range within Arabia and the largely Laurasian distribution of Triassic Ceratodus species (see Cavin et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussion-previousmentioning

confidence: 99%

First Triassic lungfish from the Arabian Peninsula

Kear

Rich

Ali³

et al. 2010

J. Paleontol.

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Triassic lungfish (Dipnoi) have been extensively documented from the Gondwanan continental and marine shelf deposits of Africa and Madagascar (Teixeira, 1949; Lehman et al., 1959; Beltan, 1968; Martin, 1979, 1981; Kemp 1996), Australia (Kemp, 1993, 1994, 1997a, 1998), India (Jain et al, 1964; Jain, 1968), and Antarctica (Dziewa, 1980). Numerous records also exist from Laurasian landmasses including Europe (Agassiz, 1838; Schultze, 1981), North America (Case, 1921) and central and eastern Asia (Liu and Yeh, 1957; Vorobyeva, 1967; Martin and Ingavat, 1982). By comparison, nothing is known of contemporary lungfish fossils from the Middle East. Thus, the recent recovery of a single tooth plate representing a new geographic occurrence of the genus Ceratodus Agassiz, 1838 from paralic marine deposits of the Jilh Formation, a latest Anisian to lower Carnian unit that crops out along the eastern margin of the Proterozoic Arabian Shield in central Saudi Arabia (Fig. 1), is significant because it provides the stratigraphically oldest record of dipnoans from the Arabian Peninsula.

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Late Cretaceous (Campanian—Maastrichtian) marine reptiles from the Adaffa Formation, NW Saudi Arabia

Cited by 17 publications

References 26 publications

Soft tissue preservation in a fossil marine lizard with a bilobed tail fin

Soft tissue preservation in a fossil marine lizard with a bilobed tail fin

A dyrosaurid from the Paleocene of Senegal

First Triassic lungfish from the Arabian Peninsula

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