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Showing results for tags 'geoffroy saint-hillaire'.
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A new fossil crocodylomorph-related paper is now available online: Johnson, M. M., Young, M. T., and Brusatte, S. L. (2020). Emptying the wastebasket: a historical and taxonomic revision of the Jurassic crocodylomorph Steneosaurus. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 189 (2): 428–448. https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fzoolinnean%2Fzlaa027 Michela Johnson and colleagues restrict Steneosaurus to the type species S. rostromajor, and make the teleosauroid snout MNHN 8900 the S. rostromajor lectotype (the skull fragment MNHN 8753 was later recognized as belonging to the metriorhynchid Metriorhynchus superciliosus) and they correctly recognize, as I had tacitly noticed, that Eudes-Deslongchamps (1867-1869) made an error in declaring that the Bathonian-age teleosauroid 'Steneosaurus' megistorhynchus best fulfilled the function of Steneosaurus type species not knowing that megistorhynchus was not an originally included nominal species of Steneosaurus. A Ph.D thesis written by Johnson last year regarding teleosauroids is available at this link: https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/36656 (Chapter 4 of the thesis by Johnson resurrects Macrospondylus for S. bollensis from the Toarcian of Europe and coins new genera for several taxa placed in Steneosaurus while revalidating Aeolodon and Sericodon, but I wouldn't disclose the names of the new genera until Chapter 4 is published, because doing so would be tantamount to stealing my thunder) In any case, Johnson and colleagues at long last figured out the concept of what the original Steneosaurus is, and given that Bathysuchus, Aeolodon, and Sericodon are much younger than the Steneosaurus type species, whereas Macrospondylus and a few other Early Jurassic teleosauroids are much older than rostromajor, it is apparent that the past assignment of many teleosauroid species to Steneosaurus is a historical accident and not reflective of biology reality, because Lemmysuchus is closer to Machimosaurus than to Steneosaurus or 'S.' edwardsi.
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