Archegosaurus decheni

Archegosaurus decheni Goldfuss, 1847

    Lower Permian

    Lebach

    Germany

    skull size: 21 cm / 8"

    Archegosaurus is a Permo-Carboniferous temnospondyl amphibian from the Saar-Nahe Basin in SW Germany. The name Archegosaurus was coined by Goldfuss in 1847. At least 90 partial skeletons – mostly skulls – have been found, many of them in the Lebach area. Larger larvae and adults were mainly ichthyophagous, as is indicated by the increasingly elongated snout, differentiation of marginal teeth, and nutrition remains (sort of a paleozoic gharial).  Skull size ranges from 18 to 280mm in length.

    picture from wikipedia

    This Archegosaurus decheni skull is from the ironstone nodules of the Lebach Group of the Saar region of Germany. People used to dig there for ironstone nodules in open pits since the Late Iron Age (500 BC). The Latène period was a European Iron age culture named after the archeological site La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The Latène culture was widespread throughout Europe; archeological evidence of this culture was found in France, Switzerland, southwest Germany, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia; Hungary and even as far as Romania. Since the iron ore content of these siderite concretions or "Lebacher Eier", how they are called in Germany (Lebacher eggs), is less than 20%, these pits were closed at the end of the 19^th century.