Re: NEW RHYNCHOSAUR & TEMNOSPONDYLS

[christian farrell kammerer <cfkammer@midway.uchicago.edu>]

Here are the aforementioned new refs dealing with non-dinosaurian
archosaurs and temnospondyls:
Schoch, Rainer R. 2000. The status and osteology of two new cyclotosaurid
amphibians from the Upper Moenkopi Formation of Arizona
(Amphibia;Temnospondyli;Middle Triassic). N. Jb. Geol. Palaont. Abh.
216(3):387-411.
Describes a new species of heylerosaurine cyclotosaurid, Eocyclotosaurus
wellesi, based on a complete skull. Some of the material assigned to
Rhadalognathus boweni Welles, 1947 probably actually belongs to this
species, but the type material of R. boweni is too poor to be sure. In
addition to E. wellesi, this paper also describes a new genus,
Quasicyclotosaurus campi. It is held as Cyclotosauridae incertae sedis, as
it has features of several cyclotosaurid subfamilies (those being the
Heylerosaurinae, the Stenotosaurinae, the Cyclotosaurinae, and the
Tatrasuchinae, by the way), but as the genus name suggests, it is very
similar to Cyclotosaurus. Some of the Moenkopisaurus randalli material
probably belongs to this species. 

On to archosaurs...
Hungerbuhler, Axel, and Adrian P. Hunt. 2000. Two new phytosaur species
(Archosauria, Crurotarsi) from the Upper Triassic of Southwest Germany. N.
Jb. Geol. Palaont. Mh. 2000(8):467-484.
More work on resolving the complex and confusing state that phytosaur
taxonomy has gotten into in the past 100 years. This time around, the new
species Nicrosaurus meyeri is created for the diagnostic angistorhinine
material assigned to the nomen dubium Belodon plieningeri. There is other
B. plieningeri material which is clearly referable to the mystriosuchidae,
and this is placed in the new species Mystriosuchus westphali. Both of
these new species are based on fairly complete skulls.

Larsson, Hans C.E. and Boubacar Gado. 2000. A new Early Cretaceous
crocodyliform from Niger. N. Jb. Geol. Palaont. Abh. 217(1):131-141.
Hans is of course in Niger right now digging up more new EK crocs, but
here is some material from previous forays. The new genus and species
Stolokrosuchus lapparenti is created for a complete skull of a long,
thin-snouted crocodylifrom. The genus name comes from the Greek-African
"stolokros" for the undeveloped horns of a young goat, in regards to this
croc's prefrontal protuberances. Nice name! Anyway, Stolokrosuchus is
found to be closely related to (if not a member of) the Peirosauridae, a
rare family from the Late Cretaceous of South America. This family should
be of special interest to those interested in fossil African crocs, as the
bizarre Malagasy form Mahajangasuchus insignis has also been linked to the
Peirosauridae (Buckley & Brochu, 1999). As a side note, what's the deal
with heterodonty in Cretaceous Madagascar? What with the heterodont
crocodylomorphs and noasaurids and such...

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed!

-Christian Kammerer