A crocodile skull from Whitby

[Mahnmut]

Fantastic find! Have you tried to get an ID beyond Croc?

Best Regards,

J

[LiamL]

11 hours ago, Mahnmut said:

Fantastic find! Have you tried to get an ID beyond Croc?

Best Regards,

J

 

I'm was told by someone who is writing a paper on this species that the name Steneosaurus is no longer valid and that it's now known as Plagiophthalmosuchus.

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by LiamL

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

26 minutes ago, LiamL said:

I'm was told by someone who is writing a paper on this species that the name Steneosaurus is no longer valid and that it's now known as Plagiophthalmosuchus.

 

That depends on the species of 'Steneosaurus'. The genus indeed used to be used as a wastebucket taxon, and various species have received their own genus name. Not sure whether this would be Plagiophthalmosuchus, though it seems very possible as that species is recorded from Whitby. In any case, the scute on its head indicates this as a teleosaurid marine crocodile.

[DD1991]

On 6/9/2023 at 12:47 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

That depends on the species of 'Steneosaurus'. The genus indeed used to be used as a wastebucket taxon, and various species have received their own genus name. Not sure whether this would be Plagiophthalmosuchus, though it seems very possible as that species is recorded from Whitby. In any case, the scute on its head indicates this as a teleosaurid marine crocodile.

The type species of Steneosaurus, S. rostromajor, comes from geologic deposits in northern France of Callovian age (Eudes-Deslongchamps [1866] noted that the holotype and referred specimen of Steneosaurus rostromajor belonged to a teleosauroid and Thalattosuchus respectively, and he erroneously regarded the Bathonian-age species Teleosaurus megistorhynchus as fulfilling the function of the type species of Steneosaurus, but that is another story). Various Early to Late Jurassic teleosauroid taxa were once synonymized with Steneosaurus, namely Macrospondylus, Aeolodon, Mystriosaurus, and Sericodon, but it's now clear from recent work by Mark Young and Michela Johnson that they are valid genera in their own right (since Eudes-Deslongchamps [1866] recognized the holotype of Steneosaurus rostromajor as being very similar to his new species Steneosaurus edwardsi from the Callovian of Normandy, Johnson and colleagues coined the name Neosteneosaurus for S. edwardsi even as they restricted Steneosaurus to S. rostromajor). Given that Sachs et al. (2019) found Mystriosaurus laurillardi to be a senior synonym of Steneosaurus brevior, it'd be interesting to see if the fossil discussed on this thread could be Macrospondylus, Mystriosaurus, or Plagiophthalmosuchus.

 

Eudes-Deslongchamps, J. A., 1866. Sur la découverte d’une mâchoire inférieure entière de Steneosaurus megistorhynchus (GEOFF.) trouvée à Allemagne et comparaison de cette espèce avec le Teleosaurus larteti (DESL.). Bulletin de la Société linnéenne de Normandie 10: 80-85.

 

Sachs, S., Johnson, M.M., Young, M.T., and Abel, P. 2019. The mystery of Mystriosaurus: Redescribing the poorly known Early Jurassic teleosauroid thalattosuchians Mystriosaurus laurillardi and Steneosaurus brevior. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 64 (3): 565–579.

[MrR]

Wow, that has to be one of the most difficult "sculpting by numbers" revealing that ever went down. The matrix looks super hard and must have taken one heck of an effort, and numerous talented man-hours, to complete the preparation. That's an eagle-eye of a find, and mind-blowing prep.  I really is a beautiful fossil. Congratulations.

 

 

 

[Mart1980]

Definitely a dream fossil find! What a beautiful piece. Nicely prepared too, well done. 

Edited June 17, 2023 by Mart1980