Parvosaurus harudensis Freisem, Müller, Sues & Sobral, 2024

Holotype.

MB. R. 4520.2, incomplete skull, concealed in a block of matrix, which is part of the holotype of Elachistosuchus huenei. It preserves most of the dermal skull roof, a partial palate, and a left dentary (Fig. 14 D). The braincase is present but not well enough preserved to distinguish between individual elements.

Type locality.

Baerecke-Limpricht brick-clay pit along the present-day highway B 79 between Halberstadt and Quedlinburg near Halberstadt, Saxony-Anhalt.

Type horizon.

Arnstadt Formation, Middle Keuper Subgroup. Age: Late Triassic (Norian).

Diagnosis.

Distinguished by the following combination of features: premaxilla with long ascending process reaching almost to a third of anteroposterior length of nasal; maxilla with long posterior process reaching up to middle of jugal body; dentary with prominent coronoid process; nasal rectangular in outline; postfrontal with well-developed posterior process extending beyond frontoparietal suture posteriorly; elongate parietal foramen bounded only by parietals; posterior border of parietals strongly embayed, with posterolateral processes enclosing angle of 110 °; posterior process of postorbital at least twice as long as ventral process; medial process of postorbital underlapping lateral process of postfrontal; parietal and postorbital forming most of margin of supratemporal fenestra; maxillary teeth small, pin-like anteriorly and taller and conical posteriorly; heights of posterior two maxillary teeth about one third heights of anterior teeth; and ectopterygoid articulating with jugal but not maxilla (Freisem et al. 2024)

Comments.

The holotype was discovered during µCT-scanning of one of the blocks containing the holotype of Elachistosuchus huenei Janensch, 1949 (MB. R. 4520.2). The phylogenetic analysis by Freisem et al. (2024) recovered Parvosaurus harudensis as an early-diverging sphenodontian slightly more crownward than Diphydontosaurus avonis from Late Triassic cave fillings in southwestern England (Whiteside 1986).

References.

Freisem et al. (2024).