Rhiodenticulatus heatoni

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Rhiodenticulatus heatoni


Rhiodenticulatus heatoni, the only recognized species of the genus, is a small, single-tooth-rowed captorhinid.
Although generally primitive it shows some remarkable features in its skull structure: the lacrimal, a bone of the anterior side wall of the skull, is very high dorsoventrally, hence the snout has, in contrast to other captorhinids, a somewhat domed appearance. One of the middle upper jaw teeth has a base diameter about as twice the base diameter of the adjacent teeth but exceeds them only little in height. The premaxillary teeth are homodont whereas in most other captorhinids the first tooth is the largest and the following teeth are succesively smaller. Besides the skull also some postcranial bones are known, showing, however, no significant differences to that of other captorhinids. R. heatoni is the only representative of the, compared to other Permian taxa, poor captorhinid fossil record of the terrestrial Permian deposits of New Mexico.

Rhiodenticulatus heatoni Berman & Reisz 1986
Some Facts

Family: Captorhinidae

Etymology of genus: "nose with small teeth"

Etymology of species: named after the paleontologist Malcolm J. Heaton

Paleogeography: southern margin of Ancestral Rocky Mountains, northwestern Pangaea

Locality: Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, USA

Horizon: Cutler Formation

Synonyms: -

Stratigraphic Range: Lower Permian: Wolfcampian


References

BERMAN, D.S. and REISZ, R.R. (1986): Captorhinid reptiles from the Early Permian of New Mexico, with description of a new genus and species. Ann. Carnegie Mus., 55, pp. 1-28


Credits
--Zidane 11:59, 25 May 2008 (PDT)

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