Life reconstruction of Threordatoth chasmatos. Image credit: Mark Witton.
SciNews brings news of a new fossil parareptile from southwest England. Threordatoth chasmatos lived between 220 and 210 million years ago in the Triassic Period. It was discovered in Cromhall Quarry in south Gloucestershire, southwest England. The animal is a member of the Leptopleuroninae, a subfamily of extinct lizard-like parareptiles within the clade Procolophonidae. These animals usually have a reduced number of transversely expanded and bicuspid maxillary teeth, but Threordatoth chasmatos actually has tricuspid teeth in its upper jaw and compressed monocuspid teeth in its lower jaw. The details are published in a paper in the journal Papers in Palaeontology.
“This small reptile’s teeth and jaw show features we’ve never seen before in its group,” said Dr. Meade, lead author of a study published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology.
“It likely fed in a way that distinguished it from its closest relatives, which opens up new questions about how these animals were interacting with their environment during the Late Triassic period.”
...
“Inferring the interplay between the upper and lower teeth is fascinating, there are several aspects of the tooth shape that resemble those of mammals,” said Dr. Marc Jones, fossil reptiles curator at the Natural History Museum, London.