A LONG-BODIED LIZARD FROM THE LOWER CRETACEOUS OF JAPAN |
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| Authors: | SUSAN E EVANS MAKOTO MANABE† MIYUKI NORO‡ SHINJI ISAJI§ MIKIKO YAMAGUCHI¶ |
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| Institution: | Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK;e-mail:; National Science Museum, 3-23-1 Hyakunin-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0073 Japan;e-mail:; Laboratory of Organogenesis, Department of Developmental Biology and Neurosciences, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Northern Honshu, Japan;e-mail:; Natural History Museum and Institute, Chiba, 955-2 Aoba-cho, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8682, Japan;e-mail:; Kuwajima, Hakusan City, Kuwajima, Hakusan-shi, Ishikawa Prefecture, 920-2520, Japan |
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| Abstract: | Abstract: Platynotan lizards underwent a dramatic Late Cretaceous radiation into marine habitats. Beginning with small-bodied forms, the lineage culminated with the mosasaurs, large predatory lizards with a world-wide distribution in the Santonian–Campanian. Moreover, the marine squamate radiations of the Cenomanian–Turonian are remarkable in having produced a range of long-bodied, reduced-limbed swimmers (dolichosaurs, adriosaurs, coniasaurs and limbed snakes) that seem to have thrived in the shallow coastal environments of the Western Tethys region. Until now, none of these long-bodied aquatic squamates has been recorded prior to the Cenomanian, none has been recovered from a non-marine locality and none is known from Asia. Here we describe a small, gracile, long-bodied mosasauroid lizard from a swampy continental deposit in the Lower Cretaceous of Japan. |
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| Keywords: | Cretaceous Tetori Group Japan Squamata Mosasauroidea lizard |
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