Bizarre notosuchian crocodyliform with associated eggs from the Upper Cretaceous of Bolivia

NOVAS, F.E., PAIS, D.F., POL, D., CARVALHO, I.S., SCANFERLA, A., MONES, A., Y RIGLOS, M.S

JOURNAL OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

SOC VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY

Año: 2009 vol. 29 p. 1316 - 1320

0272-4634

Up to now, the Mesozoic record of fossil vertebrates from Bolivia was restricted to Campanian–Maastrichtian dinosaur footprints and isolated and poorly informative dinosaur teeth and bones. Discovery of several, almost complete skeletons of a new notosuchian taxon constitutes the most important bone discovery for the Mesozoic of Bolivia, adding substantially to the meager record of this region of South America. At least two partially disarticulated skeletons were found together in a small area. In this paper we describe this material as a new genus and species. We consider only the skull morphology, because most of available postcranial remains are still under technical preparation. This new taxon is characterized by the following unique combination of features (the first six are autapomorphies) : nasals rostrally expanded above the external nares; palatines bearing a median sagittal crest; retroarticular process rounded and rostro-caudally short; jugal laterally expanded forming an ornamented prong at level of postorbital bar; incisiviforms separated from molariforms through a diastema; molariform tooth rows rostrally convergent and almost in touch each other; posterior molariform teeth with occlusal surface formed by a central multicusped crest surrounded by both mesial and distal lower multicusped crests; squamosal with sharp lateral margin.