Tag: Sauropterygia

  • Pachypleurosauridae disarticulated elements 4/LMK

    Pachypleurosauridae disarticulated elements 4/LMK

    Sauropterygia ?Pachypleurosauridae indet. Disarticulated elements (tooth, neural arch, vertebral centrum) Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland Here, you can see three specimens in one. The rock fragment contains disarticulated parts of the skeleton of a small Sauropterygian – a tooth, a vertebra centrum, and a neural arch. Given their age and…

  • Sauropterygia indet. vertebral neural arch 3/LMK

    Sauropterygia indet. vertebral neural arch 3/LMK

    Sauropterygia indet. cf Nothosaurus sp. Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Lower Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland This is an example of a vertebral neural arch (a part of a vertebra). A fairly common find in the Gogolin Beds. Complete vertebrae are truly rare. In this case, the arch “lies on its back,” exposing the canal…

  • Sauropterygia assoc. Acrodus teeth 2/LMK

    Sauropterygia assoc. Acrodus teeth 2/LMK

    Sauropterygia indet. assoc. Acrodus sp. Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland This is the type of fossil I like best. The plate you see is a snapshot, a frozen image of a section of the seabed from 240 million years ago. Between fragments of crushed, older sediment, pebbles, and crushed fragments…

  • Sauropterygia cf. Nothosaurus tooth 1/LMK

    Sauropterygia cf. Nothosaurus tooth 1/LMK

    Sauropterygia indet. cf. Nothosaurus Middle Triassic, Lower Muschelkalk (Anisian), Lower Gogolin Beds, Upper Silesia, Poland These types of teeth are traditionally designed as the genus Nothosaurus. This is a gross simplification. According to a paleontologist friend of mine, the four groups of Triassic reptiles have similar teeth (Nothosaurus, Germanosaurus, Cymatosaurus and Lamprosauroides) and we can’t…