A complete mandible of a new amphisbaenian reptile (Squamata, Amphisbaenia) from the late middle eocene (Bartonian, Mp 16) of France

Abstract

A new genus of amphisbaenian reptile, Cuvieribaena carlgansi, is decribed from the late middle Eocene of France. This material from the locality of Le Bretou (Phosphorites du Quercy) is an almost completely preserved mandible. The dentary bears six teeth, with the anterior-most one the largest. The anterior teeth are blunt and enlarged ('amblyodont'), and their size and amblyodonty decrease posteriorly. The presence of well-developed amblyodont teeth indicates a durophagous diet. Durophagy has already been recognized in some amphisbaenids, and their high skull, short jaws, and robust tooth morphology predispose them to this durophagous lifestyle. Several other amphisbaenid specimens have also been recovered from Le Bretou, mainly trunk vertebrae and two incomplete dentaries. This material and the complete mandible show unambiguous morphological features tying them to Blanidae. Cuvieribaena is the earliest secure record of blanid lizards in the fossil record, confirmed by phylogenetic analysis.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.

First fossil find of theBlanus strauchicomplex (Amphisbaenia, Blanidae) from the Miocene of Anatolia

“…Eight fossil taxa have been attributed to Blanidae, all from the European continent. The early Eocene taxon Blanosaurus primeocaenus Folie, Smith, and Smith, 2013, from Belgium and France, and the middle Eocene Cuvieribaena carlgansi Cer nansk y, Aug e, and Rage, 2015a, and Louisamphisbaena ferox Aug e, 2012, both from France, have been suggested to represent the earliest named blanids (Aug e, 2012; Folie et al, 2013;Cer nansk y et al, 2015a), extending the fossil record of the clade well back into the Paleogene. Furthermore, the Paleogene record of the group appears not to be confined to these two taxa, as judged by several other finds across the Eocene of France (Aug e, 2012) and Spain (Bolet and Evans, 2013) and the Oligocene of France (Rage and Aug e, 2015) and Germany (Schleich, 1988; Cer nansk y et al, 2016).…”

Transient presence of a teiid lizard in the European Eocene suggests transatlantic dispersal and rapid extinction

“…Amphisbaenia) are now widely recognised (e.g. Čerňanský et al 2015;Reeder et al 2015). Besides, this vertebra is clearly different from amphisbaenian vertebrae which lack a neural spine and present prezygapophyseal processes.…”

A new gecko (Squamata, Gekkota) from the Eocene of Geiseltal (Germany) implies long‐term persistence of European Sphaerodactylidae

“…2019), blanid amphisbaenians (Čerňanský et al . 2015), and discoglossine and perhaps pelobatid frogs (Rage 2012) are best interpreted as the persistent presence of at least some members of these clades since the Eocene. In the case of lacertids, anguids and blanids, the fossil record of these groups in Africa and Asia is incompletely sampled, however, and key Palaeogene species are yet to be included into global phylogenies.…”