Zarafasaura
Name:
Zarafasaura
(Giraffe lizard).
Phonetic: Zaa-rah-fa-sore-ra.
Named By: Peggy Vincent, Nathalie Bardet, Xabier
Pereda Suberbiola, Ba�di Bouya, Mbarek Amaghzaz & Sa�d
Meslouh - 2011.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Sauropterygia, Sauropterygia, Elasmosauridae.
Species: Z. oceanis (type).
Diet: Piscivore.
Size: Uncertain due to lack of fossil material.
Known locations: Morocco, Oulad Abdoun Basin.
Time period: Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Incomplete skull and
mandible (lower jaw) that was crushed from above, and a single
complete mandible.
Although
only described from a skull Zarafasaura was one of
the last surviving
elasmosaurid plesiosaurs
active around North Africa, a region that
in the past has yielded very little in the way of plesiosaur remains.
Part of this problem is Africa’s harsh climate that can quickly erode
and damage exposed fossils. The discovery of Zarafasaura
in
Maastrichtian age rocks suggests that the elasmosaurid plesiosaurs had
not declined by the end of the Cretaceous as much as previously
thought.
Zarafasaura
is noted as having a palate and squamosal that are different to other
currently known elamosaurids. Skull reconstruction of Zarafasaura
shows it to have numerous long sharp teeth that intermeshed together
when the jaws closed. This was an effective prey trap for use against
marine creatures like fish and squid which probably would have been
swallowed whole as the teeth are not suited for shearing prey into
smaller pieces.
Zarafasaura
was named from a combination of the Arabic for giraffe, and the Greek
for lizard. The species name Z. oceanis is
Latin for ‘daughter of
the sea’.
Further reading
Zarafasaura oceanis, a new
elasmosaurid (Reptilia: Sauropterygia) from the Maastrichtian
Phosphates of Morocco and the palaeobiogeography of latest Cretaceous
plesiosaurs. - Gondwana Research 19:1062-1073. - P. Vincent, N. Bardet,
X. P. Suberbiola, B. Bouya, M. Amaghzaz and S. Meslouh - 2011.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
|
 |
 |
 |