Rhynchosaurus
Name:
Rhynchosaurus
(beaked lizard).
Phonetic: Rin-ko-sor-us.
Named By: Richard Owen - 1842.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Rhynchosauria, Rhynchosauridae.
Species: R. articeps
(type), R. brodiei.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Largest individuals up to 60 centimetres
long.
Known locations: England - Bromsgrove Sandstone
Formation, Tarporley Siltstone Formation.
Time period: Anisian of the Triassic.
Fossil representation: Several individuals.
First
described in 1842, Rhynchosaurus was the first
ever rhynchosaur
to
be named, which is exactly why rhynchosaurs are called rhynchosaurs.
Rhynchosaurus had a squat low slung body that was
supported by all
four legs. Rhynchosaurus is famous for the
enlarged shearing teeth at
the front of the mouth which would have easily sliced through tough
plant matter.
Though
confirmed as a genus in its own right, Rhynchosaurus
has for a long
time been used as a wastebasket taxon where a great many fossils have
been attributed to the genus on the basis of only superficial
similarities. More modern analytical practices and research reaching
into the early twenty-first centuries has resulted in many of these
fossils beening moved to other genera and species of rhynchosaur. One
former species in particular, R. spenceri which
was one of the
large species, has now been re-classified as a distinct genus named
Fodonyx.
Furthermore, one specimen of this referred material has
now also been confirmed as being different from both Rhynchosaurus
and
Fodonyx, and so yet another genus called Bentonyx
was created with
this specimen.
Further reading
- Description of an Extinct Lacertilian Reptile, Rhynchosaurus
articeps, Owen, of which the Bones and Foot-prints characterize the
Upper New Red Sandstone at Grinshill, near Shrewsbury. -
Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society
7(3):355-369. - Richard Owen - 1842.
- The species of Rhynchosaurus, a rhynchosaur
(Reptilia,
Diapsida) from the Middle Triassic of England. - Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B 328:213-306.
- Michael J. Benton - 1990.
- A new genus of rhynchosaur from the Middle Triassic of south-west
England. - Palaeontology 51 (1): 95–115. - David W.
E. Hone & Michael J. Benton - 2008.
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