Barbaturex
| Barbaturex | ||||||||||||
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Fossilized mandibular and skull pieces from Barbaturex morrisoni |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Eocene ( Priabonian ) | ||||||||||||
| 37.2 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Barbaturex | ||||||||||||
| Head et al., 2013 | ||||||||||||
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Barbaturex is a genus of the iguanas (Iguania) whose representativeslivedin Southeast Asia in the late Eocene (38 mya ). The only species of the genus, Barbaturex morrisoni , reached an estimated head-torso length of around 1 m and a weight of probably 19-37 kg. The animals lived in a tropical habitat and ate herbivorous food. Barbaturex ishanded downon the basis of some fossil skull and jaw bones that come from the Pondaung formation in Myanmar . The genus was in 2013 by Jason Head , Gregg Gunnell , Patricia Holroyd , Howard Hutchison and Russell Ciochon first described . According to a phylogenetic analysis, Barbaturex is the sister taxon of the thorn- tailed agamen (Uromasticinae), from which their line of development probably separated in the early Eocene.
features
According to estimates based on the proportions of today's relatives, Barbaturex morrisoni achieved a head-torso length of 87.4–108.8 cm and a total weight of 18.9–36.9 kg. This makes the species one of the largest scaled reptiles of the Neozoic Era and is only surpassed by the Komodo dragon and Megalania . In the anterior mandible, Barbaturex had a pair of pleurodontic teeth, the central and posterior teeth were acrodontic . The rear teeth are triangular and have continuous grinding surfaces, but no secondary humps. Wide grooves on the underside of the lower jaw are a diagnostic feature of the genus. The mandibular arches are bulging on the abdomen below the Meckel's furrow . The angular bone of the species is fused with the lower jaw.
Ecology and diffusion
Barbaturex lived in the area of Southeast Asia in a tropical climate, the mean temperatures of which were about 2–5 ° C above the present day in the region. The animals were herbivores and shared their habitat mainly with larger mammals such as Sivatitanops birmanicus , Bunobrontops savagei , Paramynodon cotteri . Metatelmatherium brownii or Paramynodon birmanicus . They were among the larger species in their ecosystem and, due to their size and weight, likely had no predators when fully grown. The largest known predators of the region at the time, Orienspterodon dakhoensis and Kyawdawia lupina , were only slightly larger than Barbaturex .
Fossil material and stratigraphy
All Barbaturex fossil material comes from the Pondaung Formation in Myanmar (near the village of Mogaung in Sagaing ), which is dated to the late Eocene (37.2 + 1.3 mya ). It includes pieces from the lower jaw and frontal bone . The holotype of the genus is kept in the University of California Museum of Paleontology under inventory number UCMP 142227 .
Systematics and taxonomy
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| Systematic position of Barbaturex according to Head et al. (2013). The cladogram is based on the evaluation of DNA and morphological properties. |
The genus barbaturex was in 2013 by Jason Head , Gregg Gunnell , Patricia Holroyd , Howard Hutchison and Russell L. Ciochon based on fossils from Myanmar set up , it was barbaturex morrisoni assigned as the only way. The generic name is made up of the Latin “barbatus” for “bearded” (with a view of the jaw grooves) and “rex” for “king”. The specific epithet was dedicated by the authors to Jim Morrison , the singer of the American rock band The Doors , alluding to his line of song “ I am the Lizard King ” from the song Celebration of the Lizard from 1968. A combined phylogenetic Analysis of morphological and molecular characteristics shows Barbaturex to be a sister taxon of the thorn- tailed dragons (Uromastycinae), whose two ancestors separated according to the authors in the early Eocene (around 55 mya).
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literature
- Jason J. Head, Gregg F. Gunnell, Patricia A. Holroyd, J. Howard Hutchison, Russell L. Ciochon : Giant lizards occupied herbivorous mammalian ecospace during the Paleogene greenhouse in Southeast Asia . In: Proceedings of the Royal Society . Series B: Biological Sciences . Vol. 280, No. 1763, 2013, pp. 1-7, doi : 10.1098 / rspb.2013.0665 .
