Paleontologists have recognized a brand new genus and species of pan-shinisaur lizard from a partial higher jaw found in southern France, pushing the presence of its lineage in Europe again by at the very least 30 million years.
Paleoartistic reconstruction of Acutodon villeveyracensis, the oldest identified member of the pan-shinisaur lineage ever present in Europe. Picture credit score: Olivier Jansen.
Pan-shinisaurs are an evolutionary group of anguimorph lizards that originated within the Early Cretaceous.
At this time, the lineage survives in just one dwelling species: the Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus), an endangered semi-aquatic reptile restricted to small forest streams of southeastern China and northern Vietnam.
Scientists estimate that just a few hundred stay within the wild, threatened by habitat destruction, poaching and local weather change.
“The Chinese language crocodile lizard is an endangered species that represents the one dwelling species within the clade Pan-Shinisaurus (equal to Shinisauria),” mentioned Dr. Olivier Jansen, a paleontologist with the Laboratoire Paléontologie Évolution Paléoécosystèmes Paléoprimatologie on the Université de Poitiers and CNRS, and his colleagues.
“This species survives in small subpopulations in lowland forests of southeastern China and northern Vietnam.”
“It faces extreme threats, together with habitat destruction and escalating ranges of poaching, which is partially pushed by meals consumption and medicines, however largely by excessive demand within the unlawful pet commerce.”
“The Chinese language crocodile lizard can also be affected by local weather change, being a semi-aquatic specialist tailored to distant and densely vegetated, clear streams inside evergreen broadleaf forests, depending on annual reasonable cool temperatures.”
“Whereas this species is at the moment on the point of extinction, the evolutionary historical past of this group stays poorly understood, and the species might disappear earlier than we untangle the mysteries of its origins.”
The newly-described pan-shinisaur species, named Acutodon villeveyracensis, lived in what’s now France through the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous, roughly 83 million years in the past.
“This Cretaceous file is the oldest in Europe for pan-shinisaur lizards,” the paleontologists mentioned.
“It pre-dates the incidence of this clade in Europe by round 30 million years, elevating questions concerning the paleobiogeographic historical past of pan-shinisaur lizards.”
The holotype and solely materials of Acutodon villeveyracensis was unearthed close to the city of Villeveyrac within the Hérault area of France.
The specimen is a fossilized higher jawbone about 2.8 cm (1.1 inches) lengthy, lined with slender, recurved tooth.
It shared a number of uncommon anatomical traits with dwelling and extinct crocodile lizards, together with distinctive tooth substitute buildings often known as resorption pits.
The researchers concluded that the mix of options was distinctive sufficient to warrant naming a completely new genus and species.
“Acutodon villeveyracensis is attributed to a pan-shinisaur anguimorph primarily based on a toothed maxilla sharing a number of characters with the dwelling Chinese language crocodile lizard and its fossil kinfolk, notably tall, tapered, and recurved tooth, with mesiodistally constricted tooth bases missing basal infoldings however possessing medial resorption pits, and a posteromedially shifted anterior superior alveolar foramen,” they mentioned.
Utilizing cranium proportions from dwelling crocodile lizards, the scientists estimated that Acutodon villeveyracensis might have exceeded 1 m (3.3 toes) in size.
“This species was actually a predator, competing in measurement and habitat kind with two different giant squamates current on this ecosystem (i.e., a terrestrial monstersaur and a freshwater mosasaur),” they mentioned.
“The peculiar dentition of Acutodon villeveyracensis, composed of skinny, tapered, and recurved tooth, is in step with a food plan that included fishes, and by analogy with the Chinese language crocodile lizard, it presumably additionally ate up different small vertebrates akin to frogs, salamanders, and albanerpetontids that inhabited the marshes of the freshwater floodplain of Villeveyrac (Hérault, France).”
The invention of Acutodon villeveyracensis is described in a paper revealed this week within the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
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Olivier Jansen et al. A brand new pan-shinisaur lizard (Anguimorpha) from the decrease Campanian of Villeveyrac (Hérault, France). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, revealed on-line Could 20, 2026; doi: 10.1080/02724634.2026.2636649
