Saniwa
Name: Saniwa.
Phonetic: San-e-wah.
Named By: Joseph Leidy - 1870.
Synonyms: Thinosaurus.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Squamata,
Varanoidea, Varanidae.
Species: S. ensidens
(type), T. agilis, T. crassa, S. edura, T.
grandis, S. major, S. orsmaelensis?, T. paucidens.
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Between 1.3 and 2.15 meters long,
depending upon the species.
Known locations: Belgium. France. Germany.
Krygyzstan. Mexico. USA, California, Colorado, North
Dakota, Utah & Wyoming.
Time period: Paleocene? through to the end of the
Eocene.
Fossil representation: Many individuals, including
a complete and articulated juvenile.
Saniwa
is one of the better known genera of prehistoric monitor lizard, and
although initially only known from North America, specimens are now
known from Europe as well as northern Asia. Like monitor lizards
living today, Saniwa was a predator. Juvenile
monitor lizards tend
to focus upon hunting invertebrates like insects, but as they grow
bigger and reach sizes like those Saniwa is known
to have attained they
switch to a more vertebrate exclusive diet and hunt everything from
other lizards to mammals and birds.
Saniwa
was not quite a modern monitor lizard, though it was certainly
close. The jugal (cheekbone) of Saniwa still
projected slightly
forwards in front of the eye and the suture between the frontal and
parietal bones is straight. Additionally, Saniwa
still has teeth
growing from the palate. Apart from these Saniwa
still resembled a
modern monitor lizard by scurrying around on all fours. Lizards of
the Saniwa genus are also noted for having a tail
proportionately much
longer than that of the body; as much as almost two thirds of the
total body length was tail.
Unlike
many fossil genera, the appearance of Saniwa is
beyond doubt thanks
to some very well preserved specimens. The best of these is a
juvenile from the Green River Formation of Wyoming which was found not
only complete and fully articulated, but also with some of the
internal soft tissues and scales as well.
Saniwa
was also the first extinct lizard to be named from North America.
Further reading
- Descriptions of Emys jaenesi, E.
haydeni, Baena arenosa,
and Saniwa ensidens, Joseph Leidy - 1870.
- The anatomy of the fossil varanid lizard Saniwa ensidens
Leidy,
1870, based on a newly discovered complete skeleton, O. Rieppel
& L. Grande - 2007.
- Re-assessment of varanid evolution based on new data from Saniwa
ensidens Leidy, 1870 (Squamata, Reptilia), J.
Conrad, O.
Rieppel & L. Grande - 2008.
- Holotype snout elements of Saniwa ensidens
reassigned to cf.
Restes sp. indet. (Xenosauridae), M. W. Caldwell -
2003.
-
The Only Known Jawed Vertebrate with Four Eyes and the Bauplan of the
Pineal Complex. - Current Biology. 28 (7): 1101–1107. - Krister T.
Smith, Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar, Gunther K�hler & J�rg Habersetzer -
2018.
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