Protorosaurus

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Protorosaurus
Drawing of a fossil (trunk, forelegs, shoulder girdle) of Protorosaurus speneri, found near Schweina in Thuringia, today kept in the Freiberg Mining Academy

Drawing a fossil (trunk, front legs, shoulder girdle) of speneri protorosaurus , found at Schweina in Thuringia, in today Freiberg kept

Temporal occurrence
Upper Perm
259.9 to 251.9 million years
Locations
  • Germany
Systematics
Sauropsida
Diapsida
Archosauromorpha
Protorosauria
Protorosauridae
Protorosaurus
Scientific name
Protorosauridae
Lydekker , 1888
Scientific name of the  genus
Protorosaurus
von Meyer , 1830
Fossil of Protorosaurus speneri , found in Ibbenbüren

Protorosaurus is an extinct genus of reptile-like Sauropsida from the Lopingium (Oberperm) of Germany. Fossil remains come from the copper shale of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and Hesse. Finds from England were also known early on (Hancock & Howse 1871). Two species were originally described , P. speneri and P. huxleyi . The former was named in honor of Christian Maximilian Spener , who in 1710had informally describedthe firstspecimen foundnear Kupfersuhl in 1706. The second species, which is known only from a single specimen from the English copper slate equivalent "Marl Slate", was movedinto its own genusby DMS Watson in1914due to differences in body structure as Adelosaurus huxleyi , which wasconfirmed in1988 by Susan Evans .

Discovery story

The first fossils were found in 1706, 1717/18 and 1733 near Kupfersuhl and Glücksbrunn when mining copper slate . They were initially described as "marinum amphibium", "felis marina", petrified crocodile, lizard or fossil monitor lizard. The unusualness of the finds caused a sensation during the Enlightenment and the Baroque period . The first images can be found shortly after the discovery in Scheuchzer (1708), Spener (1710), Büttner (1710), Mylius (1718). The Swiss polymath Johann Jakob Scheuchzer also reproduced the two oldest finds of the Protorosaurus in his treatise on fish in 1708 and in the Copper Bible in 1731. For him it was one of the proofs of the correctness of the flood theory , which was supported by the science of the formation of fossils in the 18th century. Subsequent finds of (incompletely preserved) limbs were - according to the flood theory - identified as human remains and popularly created the term "Richelsdorf Children's Hand".

Finds from Thuringia were followed by finds near Rothenburg , Eisleben , Mansfeld and Richelsdorf , some of which were described in the 18th century. More recent finds come from Bad Sachsa and Ibbenbüren , but the mining dumps around Eisleben and Richelsdorf always offer new finds. There are now at least three complete finds. The best preserved skeleton comes from Ibbenbüren. It has been presented to the public repeatedly and various museums show casts of the piece.

Hermann von Meyer gave the reptile its scientific name, which is still valid today, in 1832. For a monograph on copper schistsaurs only a few years later in 1856, he already had 20 copies, but mostly only trunk and tail fragments with limbs.

A revision of Protorosaurus comes from Gottmann & Sander (2009).

features

Protorosaurus , modern reconstruction

Protorosaurus was a long-necked lizard that lived in the arid climate on the edge of the Zechstein Sea and was widespread in the entire deposit area. Innumerable plant remains - ovules from the Ullmannia conifer - in the stomach area of ​​a decayed skeleton find were early interpreted by Weigelt (1930) as stomach contents. Schweitzer (1963) describes a large coprolite with multiple ovules of Ullmannia from the copper slate equivalent of the Lower Rhine region and assigns this to Protorosaurus . In spite of these clear indications of the herbivorous diet, Haubold & Schaumberg (1985) assumed that fish were fed on the basis of the single-pointed teeth.

Only Munk & Sues (1993) were able to prove the plant-based diet, which is scientifically accepted today, on the basis of another find with vegetable residues and stomach stones in the stomach area. Protorosaurus probably picked up the seeds of the ripe coniferous cones of Ullmannia frumentaria that had fallen from the tree , because this is the only way to explain the findings of dozens of ovules as fossil stomach contents. Ullmannia frumentaria occurred frequently in sparse stands on the edge of the Zechstein Sea and evidently formed an ideal habitat. The associated proximity to the Zechstein Sea explains the frequent finds in the deposits of copper slate and its equivalents.

Protorosaurus had 7 cervical vertebrae , a total of 26 presacral vertebrae (vertebrae in front of the pelvis), two lumbar vertebrae and an estimated 50–70 caudal vertebrae, of which a maximum of 39 have so far been occupied (Gottmann & Sander 2009). Hermann von Meyer found the Kupfersuhler specimen to be 1.64 meters long. From further fragmentary finds we know that this size was not the maximum achievable size, it is estimated at 2.50 meters. The Halle professor Ernst Friedrich Germar already described a find of this size in his copper slate fossil monograph in 1840; it comes from Wimmelburg near Eisleben and was found shortly before in 1839. A similar specimen of a large specimen is exhibited in the Natural History Museum in Schleusingen in Thuringia. Further finds can be seen in the Natural History Museum in Vienna and in the Westphalian Museum of Natural History in Münster. The second oldest find by Kupfersuhl from 1717/18 can still be seen today, in the Linck natural history cabinet in Waldenburg in Saxony.

In the older English scientific literature there is the synonymously used name "Proterosaurus" , which goes back to the paleontological work on the German Zechstein of the Dresden professor Hanns Bruno Geinitz from 1848 and 1861. This corrected linguistically incorrectly formed paleontological names etc. a. also the name of the Protorosaurus , as the first syllable of the name was derived from the Greek word "proteros" (first, the first). According to the current international nomenclature rules, the oldest available name is always valid, regardless of a possible incorrect spelling.

Systematics

In the past, Protorosaurus was assigned to the Rhynchocephalia and the " Thecodontia ", among others , the latter view having prevailed. Today, in the era of phylogenetic systematics , the group name “Thecodontia” is no longer used. Instead, Protorosaurus is placed in the root group of the Archosauria and is considered the oldest known representative of the Archosauromorpha . He is, so to speak, an ancestor of the ancestors of the dinosaurs.

literature

  • Gottlieb F. Mylius: Memorabilium Saxoniæ Subterraneæ. 2 parts. Self-published, Leipzig 1709–1718.
  • Hermann von Meyer : Palaeologica for the history of the earth and its creatures. Siegmund Schmerber, Frankfurt am Main 1832, digitized .
  • Hanns Bruno Geinitz : The petrifications of the German Zechstein Mountains (= The petrifications of the Zechstein Mountains and Rothliegende or Permian system in Saxony. Issue 1). Arnold, Dresden et al. 1848, digitized .
  • Hanns Bruno Geinitz: Dyas or the Zechstein formation and the Rothliegende. Book 1: The animal remains of the Dyas. Engelmann, Leipzig 1861–1862, digitized .
  • Albany Hancock, Richard Howse: On Proterosaurus speneri, von Meyer, and a new species, Proterosaurus huxleyi, from the Marl-Slate of Midderige, Durham. In: Natural History Transactions of Northumberland and Durham. Vol. 4, Article 9, 1871, ZDB -ID 963911-1 , pp. 232-242, digitized .
  • Johannes Weigelt : About the presumed food of Protorosaurus and about a physically preserved infructescence of Archaeopodocarpus germanicus aut. In: Johannes Weigelt, Rudolf Disselhorst , Emil Abderhalden (Hrsg.): Festschrift für Johannes Walther (= Leopoldina. Series 2, Vol. 6, ISSN  0323-4444 ). Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1930, pp. 269-280.
  • Hans-Joachim Schweitzer : The female cone of Pseudovoltzia liebeana and its importance for the phylogeny of the conifers. In: Palaeontographica. Department B: Paleophytology. Vol. 113, 1963, ISSN  0375-0299 , pp. 1-29.
  • Günther Schaumberg: Paleozoic reptiles in Northern Hesse. In: Philippia. Vol. 5, No. 1, 1982, ISSN  0343-7620 , pp. 3–10, digital version (PDF; 2.42 MB) .
  • Hartmut Haubold & Günther Schaumberg (1985): The fossils of copper slate. Neue Brehm Bücherei, A. Ziemsen Verlag, ISSN  0138-1423
  • Susan E. Evans: The Upper Permian reptile Adelosaurus from Durham. In: Palaeontology. Vol. 31, No. 4, 1988, ISSN  0031-0239 , pp. 957-964, digitized version (PDF; 596.64 kB) .
  • Robert L. Carroll : Paleontology and Evolution of the Vertebrates. Thieme, Stuttgart et al. 1993, ISBN 3-13-774401-6 .
  • Wolfgang Munk, Hans-Dieter Sues : Gut contents of Parasaurus (Pareiasauria) and Protorosaurus (Archosauromorpha) from the Kupferschiefer (Upper Permian) of Hessen, Germany. In: Paleontological Journal . Vol. 67, No. 1/2, 1993, pp. 169-176, doi : 10.1007 / BF02985876 .
  • Silvio Brandt: The fossils of the Mansfeld and Sangerhäuser copper slate (= Mansfeld Museum. Series of publications. New series, issue 2). Förderverein Mansfeld-Museum eV, Hettstedt 1997, ISBN 3-932639-01-4 .
  • Günther Schaumberg: Paleozoic reptiles in Northern Hesse II. In: Philippia. Vol. 13, No. 3, 2008, pp. 201-216, abstract .
  • Annalisa Gottmann-Quesada, P. Martin Sander : A redescription of the early archosauromorph Protorosaurus speneri Meyer, 1832, and its phylogenetic relationships. In: Palaeontographica. Department A: Paleozoology, Stratigraphy. Vol. 287, No. 4/6, 2009, ISSN  0375-0442 , pp. 123-220.

Web links

Commons : Protorosaurus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jensen Zlotowicz: Oldest fossil dinosaur discovered in Kupfersuhls depth. Thüringer Allgemeine / Eisenacher Allgemeine (eisenach.thueringer-allgemeine.de), May 4, 2018, accessed on May 4, 2018
  2. ^ Susan E. Evans: The Upper Permian reptile Adelosaurus from Durham. Paleontology. Vol. 31, No. 4, 1988, pp. 957-964. On-line
  3. ↑ Jan-Ole Kriegs, Detlef Gregorczyk: Greetings. Geology and paleontology in Westphalia. Volume 88, 2016, pp. 5–10, ( PDF 5.5 MB; entire volume)
  4. ↑ Alfred Hendricks (Ed.): Petrified Treasures of Westphalia. Fossils from 450 million years of geological history. Westphalian Museum of Natural History - State Museum and Planetarium, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-924590-89-3 , p. 54-57, 131 .
  5. ↑ Westphalian fossils. In: fossils . tape 23 , no. 5 , 2006, p. 259-260 .