A Triassic Aquatic Protorosaur with an Extremely Long Neck

doi:10.1126/science.1100498

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A Triassic Aquatic Protorosaur with an Extremely Long Neck

Chun Li,¹^* Olivier Rieppel,² Michael C. LaBarbera³

By Middle Triassic time, a number of reptile lineages had diversifiedin shallow epicontinental seas and intraplatform basins alongthe margins of parts of Pangea, including the giraffe-neckedprotorosaurid reptile Tanystropheus from the Western Tethys(Europe and the Middle East), which grew to ~5 to 6 m long.Here we report another long-necked fossil, Dinocephalosaurus,from southwestern China, recently collected in Middle Triassicmarine deposits ~230 million years old. This taxon representsunambiguous evidence for a fully aquatic protorosaur. Its extremelyelongated neck is explained as an adaptation for aquatic life,perhaps for an increase in feeding efficiency.

¹ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Post Office Box 643, Beijing 100044, China.
² Department of Geology, The Field Museum, Chicago, IL 60605–2496, USA.
³ Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lichun{at}pa.ivpp.ac.cn

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LETTERS Suction Feeding in Triassic Protorosaur?: David Peters;, Brigitte Demes, David W. Krause;, Michael LaBarbera, and Olivier Rieppel (20 May 2005)
Science 308 (5725), 1112c. [DOI: 10.1126/science.308.5725.1112c]
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