Paleontologists have described a brand new genus and species of trogonophid amphisbaenian (worm lizard) from fossilized specimens present in Tunisia.
Life reconstruction of Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi able to prey on a big snail of the household Bulimulidae. Picture credit score: Jaime Chirinos.
Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi lived in what’s now Africa through the Eocene epoch, some 47 million years in the past.
The brand new species belongs to Trogonophidae, a small household of limbless, carnivorous, lizard-like reptiles throughout the clade Amphisbaenia.
“Amphisbaenians are a charismatic group of fossorial squamates, with weird morphological options and excessive anatomical modifications,” stated lead writer Dr. Georgios Georgalis from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals on the Polish Academy of Sciences and his colleagues.
“Specifically, their distinctive skeletal anatomy has attracted and puzzled researchers for the reason that nineteenth century.”
“Earlier than the appearance and broad acceptance of phylogenetic systematics, amphisbaenians had been thought of to be the third main group of Squamata, along with Serpentes and the paraphyletic ‘Lacertilia’.”
“Latest phylogenetic analyses, nonetheless, have positioned them because the sister group of lacertid lizards, a topology that has been supported by each molecular and mixed morphological and molecular proof: a reputation, Lacertibaenia, was even proposed for the clade Amphisbaenia + Lacertidae.”
“Amphisbaenians have a comparatively wealthy fossil report throughout the Cenozoic of Europe and North America, coupled with a couple of Neogene and Quaternary occurrences from South America, a couple of Palaeogene, Neogene, and Quaternary occurrences from Africa, a only a few Neogene occurrences from the Arabian Peninsula, and a only a few occurrences from the Neogene of southwestern Asia.”
“Trogonophidae are a quite distinctive group of amphisbaenians which might be in the present day distributed in northern and north-central Africa (together with Socotra Island, Yemen) and the Center East,” they added.
“4 dwelling genera are at present acknowledged, i.e. Agamodon, Diplometopon, Pachycalamus, and the sort genus, Trogonophis.”
Essentially the most distinctive characteristic of trogonophids is their acrodont dentition, a characteristic that, inside squamates, is in any other case current solely within the iguanian group Acrodonta.”
“Trogonophids additionally possess different distinctive options amongst amphisbaenians, together with locomotion and burrowing patterns, shoulder girdle or hemipenial morphology, chromosomes, vertebral association, the absence of caudal autotomy, and a triangular physique in cross-section.”
A number of specimens of Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi had been discovered at a fossil-bearing locality within the Natural Park of Djebel Chambi in Tunisia.
“The Djebel Chambi Nationwide Park is located within the Kasserine space, within the Central Western a part of Tunisia,” the paleontologists stated.
“The fabric of this examine comes from a fossil-bearing web site (Chambi locus 1), which consists of fluvio-lacustrine deposits located on the base of the continental sequence of Chambi.”
“These localities have yielded a various assemblage of aquatic and terrestrial vertebrates, together with fishes, amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, squamates, birds, and mammals, resembling bats, primates, eulipotyphlans, hyaenodonts, hyracoids, an elephant shrew, a marsupial, a rodent, and a sirenian.”
Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi was over 90 cm (35 inches) in size, making it the biggest identified amphisbaenian to ever dwell.
“Amongst extant amphisbaenians, Amphisbaena alba is the biggest species, reaching a most whole size of 81 cm (32 inches) and a cranium size of over 3.1 cm (1.2 inches),” the researchers stated.
Virtually all dwelling amphisbaenians signify burrowing animals, which seem solely hardly ever on the floor, outdoors their subsurface environments.
However, sure options in Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi appear to contradict this pure historical past sample and recommend as a substitute that the traditional species was more likely to be a floor dweller.
That is additional supported by the acute measurement of Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi, which might render subsurface habits as much less seemingly.
“Terastiodontosaurus marcelosanchezi represents a considerable contribution to the to this point poorly identified African fossil report of Amphisbaenia, representing solely the fifth named extinct species from the continent,” the scientists concluded.
“Furthermore, the brand new materials from Chambi provides additional to the extraordinarily poor fossil report of Trogonophidae.”
The brand new species is described in a paper printed this week within the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
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Georgios L. Georgalis et al. 2024. The world’s largest worm lizard: a brand new large trogonophid (Squamata: Amphisbaenia) with excessive dental diversifications from the Eocene of Chambi, Tunisia. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 202 (3): zlae133; doi: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae133
