Tag: triassic weirdos

Panzhousaurus

Panzhousaurus rotundirostris, a sauropterygian marine reptile from the mid-Triassic of southwestern China (~245 mya), living just a few million years after the devastating Permian-Triassic mass extinction. This small marine reptile was only about 40cm long (1′4″) and is known from a single near-complete skeleton.

Although it was a distant evolutionary cousin to plesiosaurs (and even more distantly to modern turtles), it was actually most closely related to an early sauropterygian lineage known as the pachypleurosaurs – a group of small lizard-like aquatic reptiles with tiny heads, long necks, and paddle-like limbs.

It had an unusually short and rounded-off snout compared to its relatives, and since it would have lived alongside many other diverse marine reptiles it was probably specialized for a slightly different ecological niche.

Island Weirdness #01

Islands are natural sites for evolutionary experiments. Their isolation and limited resources put a lot of selective pressure on their native species, often resulting in spectacular and unique adaptations. Big animals become small, small animals become big, and ecological niches can end up being filled in unexpected ways.

From the dodo becoming the first well-known example of human-caused extinction, to Darwin’s Galápagos finches being influential in the development of the theory of natural selection, to famous-but-endangered living examples like the kiwi and marine iguana, island species are fascinating and often fragile examples of how diverse life can get even in restricted conditions.

In fact, this theme ended up containing so many species I wanted to feature that I can’t possibly fit them all into just a single month. So, for the first time, a theme is going to need two months – with part 1 happening right now, and part 2 coming later this summer.

Thecodontosaurus antiquus

For much of the Mesozoic Europe was an archipelago of islands in a shallow tropical sea. During the Late Triassic, about 205-201 million years ago, some of the paleo-islands in this region existed around southern Wales and South West England, near the city of Bristol.

Thecodontosaurus was actually one of the first non-avian dinosaurs ever named by modern science, discovered in the mid 1830s – several years before the term “dinosaur” was even created to classify the “great ancient lizards”.

It was an early member of the herbivorous sauropodomorphs, the group that would eventually include the largest ever land animals. But unlike its enormous later cousins it was short-necked and bipedal, and was particularly small compared to other contemporary “prosauropods”, measuring only about 2m long (6′6″). This would make it one of the oldest known examples of insular dwarfism.

Eretmorhipis

Eretmorhipis carrolldongi, a hupehsuchian marine reptile from the Early Triassic of China (~247 mya).

This species was originally named back in 2015, but at the time the only known specimens were missing their heads. It was assumed that its skull would have looked similar to those of other hupehsuchians… but now new fossils have been found, and it seems to have actually been much much weirder!

Eretmorhipis’ head was surprisingly tiny in proportion to its body – sort of like a marine version of Cotylorhynchus – and its shape convergently resembled the modern platypus, with a wide “duck bill” and very small eyes. It may have hunted for food along the seafloor in a similar manner to the platypus, using either a highly sensitive sense of touch or possibly even electroreception to locate small invertebrates like worms and shrimp.

It also had much larger bony osteoderms than its other known hupehsuchian relatives, forming a distinctive protruding spiky ridge down its back. At about 85cm in length (2′9″) it was one of the largest marine animals around at the time, so this structure probably wasn’t needed for defense – but as with other hupehsuchians its actual function is still unknown.

Triopticus

What Triassic animal has a name that sounds like a Transformers character?

Triopticus primus!

Living in Texas, USA, during the Late Triassic, about 229-226 million years ago, Triopticus was a type of archosauriform reptile (a “cousin” to crocodiles, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs). Classifying it any more specifically than that is rather difficult since it’s only known from a single partial skull.

It had five large bony bosses on its head that convergently resembled the domes of pachycephalosaurs, suggesting it may have engaged in similar headbutting or flank-butting behavior. At the back of its skull there was also a distinctive deep pit that looked like a “third eye socket”, inspiring it its name – although this feature probably wasn’t actually a parietal eye, instead just being the result of the way several of the bosses came together at that point.

The rest of its appearance is unknown, and this reconstruction is rather speculative as a result. But based on other archosauriformes it was likely to have been a small semi-sprawling quadruped, possibly around 80cm in length (2′7″).

Lisowicia

Dicynodonts were a group of herbivorous animals with toothless beaks and protruding tusks, part of the synapsid lineage and much closer related to mammals than to reptiles. They were some of the most successful and widespread land vertebrates from the Late Permian to the Middle Triassic, with one genus even briefly taking over the world in the aftermath of the End-Permian mass extinction event.

And it turns out some of them got very big.

Fossils of a surprisingly large dicynodont were first reported in 2008, but it wasn’t until just recently (in late 2018) that this giant creature was finally given an official name – Lisowicia bojani.

Close in size to a modern elephant, at around 2.6m tall (8′6″) and 4.5m long (14′9″), it was by far the largest known example of its kind to have ever lived. And while most other dicynodonts had upright hindlimbs and sprawling forelimbs, Lisowicia seems to have developed a fully upright posture much more similar to that of quadrupedal dinosaurs and modern mammals.

It was also one of the very last of its kind, living during the Late Triassic of Poland, about 208 million years ago (although there was a possible later survivor in Australia). This was around the same time that early sauropod dinosaurs were likewise first starting to experiment with gigantism, suggesting that both groups were convergently evolving to exploit newly-available ecological niches.

Paludidraco

Paludidraco multidentatus from the Late Triassic of Spain (~237-227 mya).

This 3m long (9′10″) animal was a member of the nothosaurs, a group of semi-aquatic seal-like marine reptiles that were closely related to plesiosaurs (and both were also evolutionary cousins to modern turtles).

It had long slender jaws full of numerous tiny teeth, creating an interlocking comb that was probably used for filter feeding – scooping up mouthfuls of fine-grained sediment from the seafloor and filtering out small invertebrates or soft plant matter.

The bones of its skeleton were also highly thickened and dense, a condition known as pachyostosis that provided ballast to weigh it down in the water. This would have made it a slow and unmaneuverable swimmer, but a very energy-efficient one, using its natural neutral buoyancy to hover or walk along the seabed.

It was essentially a reptilian manatee, filling a similar sort of ecological niche.

Caelestiventus

Caelestiventus hanseni, a pterosaur from the Late Triassic of Utah, USA. Living about 208-210 million years ago, it was very closely related to Dimorphodon – but unlike its younger coastal-dwelling relative it instead lived in a desert environment made up of a massive sand dune sea with occasional interdunal lakes.

It’s the earliest known example of a desert pterosaur, over 60 million years older than other examples, suggesting that even fairly early in their evolutionary history these flying animals had already adapted to a much wider range of habitats than previously thought.

Although only known from a partial skull and a single wing bone, it was probably one of the largest Triassic pterosaurs with a wingspan of over 1.5m (4′11″). It had a “keel” on its lower jaw that may have supported a soft-tissue crest or a pelican-like throat pouch, and there were several different types of teeth in its mouth – large pointed fangs at the front, “leaf-shaped” blades further back in its upper jaw, and numerous much smaller teeth along its lower jaw.

The skull roof also preserved the impression of Caelestiventus’ brain shape, showing that it had very well-developed vision but a poor sense of smell.

Xinpusaurus

Thalattosaurs were a weird and rather mysterious group of Triassic marine reptiles. It’s not clear where they actually fit on the reptile evolutionary tree (we know they’re diapsids, but nobody can really agree on anything more definite than that), and they had some very strange skulls that seem to have been highly specialized for something, although their actual function is still unknown.

Xinpusaurus kohi here is known from the Late Triassic of China (~232-221 mya). About 1.3m long (4′3″), with half of that being its paddle-like tail, it had an elongated upper jaw that formed a protruding pointed spear-shaped snout.

It’s not clear whether this odd snoot was an adaptation for hunting similar to the long bills of swordfish – there’s quite a bit of variation in length and shape between different individual specimens – or if it was serving some other purpose like the sexually dimorphic noses of some modern lizards.

Rebellatrix

Coelacanths are famous for being “living fossils”, completely disappearing from the fossil record at the end of the Cretaceous but then being rediscovered alive just 80 years ago. But although they’re often thought to have physically changed very little over the last 300 million years or so, more recent discoveries are starting to show that coelacanth body forms and lifestyles were actually more varied in the distant past.

Meet the wonderfully-named Rebellatrix divaricerca, from the Early Triassic of British Columbia, Canada (~251-247 mya). Measuring around 1.3m long (4′3″), its body shape and large symmetrical forked tail suggest it was adapted for fast swimming. Unlike its slow-moving deep-water modern relatives this coelacanth was a speedy oceanic active predator, convergently similar to tuna or some sharks.

Since it lived in the immediate wake of the end-Permian “Great Dying” mass extinction, Rebellatrix may have rapidly evolved from more standard-looking coelacanths to take advantage of a suddenly vacant ecological niche – or it might be part of a more extensive unusual lineage whose other members simply haven’t been discovered yet.

Tarjadia

Tarjadia ruthae from the Middle Triassic of Argentina (~242-235 mya).

Originally known only from a few fragments, this 2.5-3m long (8′2″-9′10″) animal was first considered to be an indeterminate early archosaur, then a non-archosaurian doswelliid. But new fossil material and a recent analysis have instead placed it as a member of the erpetosuchids, an early group of pseudosuchians (the branch of the archosaurs that includes modern crocodilians).

Erpetosuchids were some of the earliest well-armored archosaurs, with several rows of bony osteoderms along their neck, back, and tail, and scattered oval osteoderms covering their limbs. Their fairly gracile build and slender limbs suggest they were active terrestrial carnivores – but it’s hard to say exactly what they were preying on due to their somewhat odd skulls.

Skull of Tarjadia, from Fig 2 in Ezcurra, M. D., et al (2017). Deep faunistic turnovers preceded the rise of dinosaurs in southwestern Pangaea. Nature ecology & evolution, 1(10), 1477. doi: 10.1038/s41559-017-0305-5

They had only a few teeth at the very front of their upper jaws, with the rest being toothless, but meanwhile the lower jaw was fully-toothed. Their skulls had narrow snouts at the front but became much wider further back, suggesting the presence of powerful jaw muscles, and they had slightly upward-facing eye sockets.

Smaller erpetosuchids are speculated to have been specialized for insect-eating, catching their small prey with their front teeth and then crushing it with the semi-toothless part of their jaws further back. But something the size of Tarjadia probably couldn’t have survived on a purely insectivorous diet, and it must have been doing something else with its weird jaws.