Gwyneddosaurus

Gwyneddosaurus
Temporal range: Late Triassic, Norian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Archosauromorpha
Clade: †Tanysauria
Family: †Tanystropheidae
Genus: †Gwyneddosaurus
Bock, 1945
Species:
†G. erici
Binomial name
†Gwyneddosaurus erici
Bock, 1945

Gwyneddosaurus is a possibly invalid genus of extinct aquatic tanystropheid reptile. The type species, G. erici was described in 1945 by Wilhelm Bock, who identified it as a coelurosaurian dinosaur related to Podokesaurus (at the time, "podokesaurids" were thought to be coelurosaurians). Its remains were found in the Upper Triassic Lockatong Formation of Montgomery County, eastern Pennsylvania, and the holotype includes skull fragments, several vertebra, ribs, gastralia, partial shoulder and hip bones, and several forelimb and hindlimb elements found in soft shale, while the paratype includes a femur and a tibia. The type specimen is ANSP 15072 and it was discovered by Bock's four-year-old son[1] while the paratype is only listed as ?(ASNP coll.). It was not a large animal; the type skeleton was estimated by Bock as 18 centimetres (7.1 in) long,[1] and its thigh bone was only 23 millimeters long (0.91 in).[2]

Friedrich von Huene assigned the animal to Protorosauria in 1948 as the smallest known member of the group, finding it to be most like Macrocnemus.[2] Steel (1970) classified it as a theropod dinosaur,[3] whereas Olsen and Baird (1986) identified it as a chimera of mixed remains from a coelacanth and possibly the tanystropheid Tanytrachelos;[4] Olsen and Flynn (1989) later modified this interpretation, describing the type specimen of Gwyneddosaurus as a "gastric ejection" (regurgitation) composed of Tanytrachelos bones and possibly scraps of a coelacanth. They noted that this would make Gwyneddosaurus a senior synonym of Tanytrachelos, and recommended conserving the younger but better-represented genus.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b Bock, Wilhelm (1945). "A new small reptile from the Triassic of Pennsylvania". Notulae Naturae of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 154.
  2. ^ a b von Huene, Friedrich (1948). "Notes on Gwyneddosaurus". American Journal of Science. 246 (4): 208–213. doi:10.2475/ajs.246.4.208.
  3. ^ Steel, R. (1970). "Part 14. Saurischia. Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie/Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology". Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart: 1–87.
  4. ^ Olsen, P. E.; Baird, D. (1986). "The ichnogenus Atreipus and its significance for Triassic biostratigraphy". In Padian, K. (ed.). In The Beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs: Faunal Change across the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 61–87. ISBN 0-521-36779-4.
  5. ^ Olsen, P. E.; Flynn, J. (1989). "Field guide to the vertebrate paleontology of Late Triassic rocks in the southwestern Newark Basin (Newark Supergroup, New Jersey and Pennsylvania)". The Mosasaur. 4: 1–35.