Search results for "Sauria"
showing 10 items of 34 documents
Palaeohistology and palaeopathology of an Aeolosaurini (Sauropoda: Titanosauria) from Morro do Cambambe (Upper Cretaceous, Brazil)
2021
A recent publication of fossil bones of titanosaurs assigned to Aeolosaurini from the Morro do Cambambe site (Mato Grosso state, Brazil, Upper Cretaceous) reported anomalous growth in some of them. Here, we present osteohistological sections of elements to understand not only the microstructure and growth of such bones, but also the nature of those anomalies. Among them, we selected one cervical and one mediumposterior dorsal rib, and a haemal arch. The primary bone of all specimens consisted of a variation of the fibrolamellar complex, with the inner cortex being rich in woven bone with dispersed longitudinal canals, while the outer cortex was parallel-fibred with rows of longitudinal cana…
Dinosauroid footprints of French Upper Triassic. Discrimination, interpretation and comparison
2005
Abstract Dinosauroid tracks are common in France. They are mainly tridactyl II–IV feet tracks, sometimes with those of hands. A lot of these latter Coelurosaurichnus grancieri Courel & Demathieu, 2000 was discovered by MG near the village of Payzac (Ardèche department) in beds belonging to the “Ensemble gréso-dolomitique gris” (= EGDG) (fig. 1. 2). They are dated Carnian from palynological data [Fauconnier et al., 1996]. C. grancieri are tracks of feet and hands respectively 10 cm and 2.5 cm long (fig. 1. 3–5, 7–21; tabl. I-1, tabl. II). From the trackways characters, it was inferred that trackmakers were long legged, bipedal-quadrupedal reptiles, 1–2 m long. New discoveries made by M…
Ultraviolet reflectance and cryptic sexual dichromatism in the ocellated lizard, Lacerta (Timon) lepida (Squamata: Lacertidae)
2009
Ultraviolet (UV) colorations have garnered extensive theoretical and empirical treatment in recent years, although the majority of studies have concerned themselves with avian taxa. However, many lizards have acute visual systems with retinal photoreceptors that are sensitive to UV wavelengths, and also display UV-reflecting colour patches. In the present study, we used UV photography and full-spectrum reflectance spectrophotometry to describe intra- and intersexual colour variation in adult ocellated lizards Lacerta (Timon) lepida and to obtain evidence of UV-based ornamentation. We also investigated whether any colour traits correlate with morphological traits potentially related to indiv…
A new capitosaur from the Middle Triassic of Spain and the relationships within the Capitosauria
2011
Ajuts: this research was supported by Synthesys (European Union−funded Integrated Activities) grant DE−TAF−5309 to JF. Capitosaurs were the largest and homogeneous group of Triassic temnospondyl amphibians with cosmopolitan distribution. However, their interrelationships are debated. The first capitosaur cranial remains found in the Iberian Peninsula were assigned to Parotosuchus; herein, a re−description of this material, together with information on other remains recovered from the same site, enables us to classify them as a new genus: Calmasuchus acri gen. et sp. nov. (Amphibia: Temnospondyli) from the early−to−middle Anisian (early Middle Triassic). This capitosaur had a combination of …
Zinc accumulation in the telencephalon of lizards.
1987
The zinc concentration in the brains of two species of lizard was determined by atomic-absorption spectrophotometry. The zinc concentration was found to be highest in the telencephalon of Lacerta galloti (21.1 micrograms/g fresh weight) and Podarcis hispanica (16.77 +/- 0.8 micrograms/g) while the mesencephalon and brain stem exhibited lower zinc concentrations, i.e., 7.0 micrograms/g in Lacerta galloti and 6.08 +/- 0.4 micrograms/g in Podarcis hispanica. This high telencephalic concentration of zinc is paralleled by intense and well-defined Timm reactivity used for demonstrating the presence of zinc-containing boutons at the light-microscope level. Volumetric-densitometric studies of these…
Intestinal Helminth Parasites of Wall Lizards, Podarcis vaucheri Complex (Sauria: Lacertidae) from Algeria
2011
Abstract A parasitological survey was carried out to determine the relationships between the helminth fauna and biological traits of the hosts in three Algerian populations of Podarcis lizards belonging to two different evolutionary lineages. Size, sex, and locality of collection, as well as the infracommunities and component communities, were analyzed. Very low values of parasite infection parameters and diversity were found in all three populations. This is in accordance with the feeding habits of these lizard hosts, which only eat animal prey and no plant matter. Spauligodon saxicolae (Nematoda: Pharyngodonidae), a specialist in lizards, is reported here for the first time in Africa. Thi…
Parasitic infracommunities of the Aegean wall lizard Podarcis erhardii (Lacertidae, Sauria): isolation and impoverishment in small island populations
2009
AbstractThe Aegean wall lizard Podarcis erhardii, is widely distributed across the islands of the Aegean Sea (Greece). While there exists a relatively substantial body of knowledge on the ecology and life history of the species, the parasite communities of the taxon remain almost completely unknown. Quantifying the composition of these communities in P. erhardii is not only important for autoecological reasons, but also because inter-island comparisons of this lizard's parasite communities can shed light on the factors that structure parasite diversity in general. Here we investigate the gastrointestinal parasite communities of P. erhardii populations occurring on 16 landbridge islands of t…
New skulls of the basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis from Frick, Switzerland: is there more than one species?
2021
The Triassic basal sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis is well-known from mass accumulations at the German localities of Trossingen and Halberstadt and the Swiss locality of Frick, and is significant especially regarding its ta-phonomy and proposed developmental plasticity. These implications, however, rely on the assumption that this material derives from a single species, which has been questioned. Here we describe new skull material from Frick including eight complete and six partial skulls, more than doubling the number of known skulls of P. trossingensis. This exceptional sample size allows for gaining a deeper understanding of variability that may occur in a single species. The …
Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism
2010
The herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were the largest terrestrial animals ever, surpassing the largest herbivorous mammals by an order of magnitude in body mass. Several evolutionary lineages among Sauropoda produced giants with body masses in excess of 50 metric tonnes by conservative estimates. With body mass increase driven by the selective advantages of large body size, animal lineages will increase in body size until they reach the limit determined by the interplay of bauplan, biology, and resource availability. There is no evidence, however, that resource availability and global physicochemical parameters were different enough in the Mesozoic to ha…
Data from: Paleohistological estimation of bone growth rate in extinct archosaurs
2011
The clade Archosauria contains two very different sister groups in terms of diversity (number of species) and disparity (phenotypic variation): Crurotarsi (taxa more closely related to crocodiles than to birds) and Ornithodira (pterosaurs and dinosaurs including birds). The extant species of Crurotarsi may constitute a biased sample of past biodiversity regarding growth patterns and metabolic rates. Bone histological characters can be conserved over hundreds of millions of years in the fossil record and potentially contain information about individual age at death, age at sexual maturity, bone growth rates, and basal metabolic rates of extinct vertebrates. Using a sample of extant amniotes,…