Neosaurus

Neosaurus
Temporal range: Late Carboniferous-Early Permian, 300–295.5 Ma
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Holotype
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Family: †Sphenacodontidae
Genus: †Neosaurus
Nopsca, 1923
Type species
†Neosaurus cynodus
(Gervais, 1869)
Synonyms

Neosaurus is an extinct genus of pelycosaur-grade synapsids from the Late Carboniferous-Early Permian of the Jura region of France. It is known only from a partial maxilla or upper jaw bone and an associated impression of the bone.[1] The teardrop shape of the teeth in the jaw indicate that Neosaurus belongs to the family Sphenacodontidae, which includes the better-known Dimetrodon from the Southwestern United States. The maxilla was first attributed to an early diapsid reptile in 1857,[2][3] and later a crocodylomorph in 1869,[4] before finally being identified as a sphenacodont synapsid in 1899,[5] a classification that still holds today.[6]

A species of the hadrosaur dinosaur Hypsibema, H. missouriensis, is also called Neosaurus, although because the name was already in use, that species was renamed Parrosaurus before being reassigned to Hypsibema.[7]

  1. ^ Nopcsa, F. 1923. "Die Familien der Reptilien". Fortschritte der Geologie und Palaeontologie 2 : 1–210
  2. ^ Coquand, H. 1857. "Mémoire geologique sur l'existence du terrain permien et du représentant du grès vosgien dans le département de Saône-et-Loire et dans les montagnes de la Serre (Jura)". Bulletin de la Société geologique de France 14 : 13–47
  3. ^ Coquand, H. 1858. "Mémoire geologique sur l'existence du terrain permien et du représentant du grès vosgien dans le département de Saône-et-Loire, ainsi que dans les montagnes de la Serre (Jura)". Mémoires de la Société d'Émulation du département du Doubs 2 : 1–40
  4. ^ Gervais, P. 1869. Zoology and paléontologie générales. Nouvelles recherches sur les animaux vertébrés vivants ou fossils, Première série . 263 pp. Arthus Bertrand, Paris
  5. ^ Baur, G. and Case, EC 1899. "The history of the Pelycosauria, with a description of the genus Dimetrodon, Cope". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 20 : 5–62
  6. ^ Falconnet, J. (2013). "The sphenacodontid synapsid Neosaurus cynodus, and related material, from the Permo-Carboniferous of France". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. doi:10.4202/app.2012.0105.
  7. ^ Gilmore, Charles Whitney; Stewart, Dan R. (January 1945). "A New Sauropod Dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Missouri". Journal of Paleontology. 19 (1). Society for Sedimentary Geology: 23–29. JSTOR 1299165.