New lizard record (Diapsida; Lepidosauria) from the Late Cretaceous Adamantina Formation, Brazil

CARLOS R. CANDEIRO; WILLIAM NAVA; AGUSTIN MARTINELLI; ANALIA FORASIEPI; CARLOS A. SCANFERLA; PAULA MUZZOPAPPA

BULLETIN OF GEOSCIENCES

CZECH GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Lugar: Praga; Año: 2009 vol. 84 p. 573 - 576

1214-1119

A new record of a non-ophidian squamate from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil is herein described. The specimen was found about 10km south of Marília city (São Paulo State) in outcrops of the Adamantina Formation (Bauru Group; Turonian-Santonian). The material consists of 10 articulated dorsal vertebrae with a total length of 14mm and seven right incomplete ribs. The vertebrae are slender, procoelous, with a broad intervertebral foramen, without evidence of intercentra, with a single synapophysis. The ribs are unicapitate. This material is assigned to Squamata due to the presence of procoelous vertebrae, the absence of of intercentra in the dorsal vertebrae, and the presence of single-headed ribs. In addition, it is excluded from the snake?s group owing to absence of separated diapophyses and parapophyses, lack of clearly triangular centra in ventral view, and, if present, reduced zygosphene-zygantrum articular complex. Despite an accurate taxonomic identification of the material was not possible, it represents the first non-ophidian squamate from the Adamantina Formation, enlarging the record of squamates in the Bauru Group (Brazil), and indicating the presence of very small-sized non-ophidian squamate taxa, which are sparse in the South American fossil record.