Redescription and phylogenetic position of Caypullisaurus (Ichthyosauria: Ophthalmosauridae)

FERNANDEZ, M.

JOURNAL OF PALEONTOLOGY

Allen Press

Lugar: Kansas; Año: 2007 vol. 81 p. 368 - 375

0022-3360

The ophthalmosaurid Caypullisaurus from the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous of the Neuquén Basin, Argentina, is redescribed based on new information available by recent discoveries. Cladistic analysis of Caypullisaurus yielded two most parsimonious trees. Two clades are recognized within the Ophthalmosauridae.  Caypullisaurus is found to be nested with Brachypterygius and Platypterygius. Previous Ichthyopterygia data set were reanalyzed using the NONA parsimony program instead of PAUP* 4D64 for DOS. Simultaneous, unconstrained analysis, using unambiguous character optimization is suggested as the best way to analyze data sets with large amounts of missing data.