Carusia
Carusia Temporal range: Late Cretaceous (late Campanian)
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Clade: | Carusioidea |
Genus: | †Carusia Borsuk-Bialynicka, 1985 |
Type species | |
†Carusia intermedia Borsuk-Bialynicka, 1985
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Carusia is an extinct genus of lizards from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia. It is a close relative of the family Xenosauridae, which includes living knob-scaled lizards. Fossils of the type and only species Carusia intermedia come from the late-Campanian age Barun Goyot Formation and have been found in the Flaming Cliffs, , and fossil localities. Carusia was first described in 1985 under the name Carolina intermedia, but since the name Carolina was preoccupied by a genus of scarab beetles that had been named in 1880, it was renamed Carusia intermedia.[1] Carusia had initially been known from fragmentary skull material, complicating efforts to determine its evolutionary relationships with other lizards; it had variously been described as an indeterminate scincomorph, a xenosaurid, or some other type of autarchoglossan lizard convergent with xenosaurids. However, the discovery of 35 complete skulls in the 1990s, three of which were described in a detailed 1998 monograph, revealed that Carusia was the sister taxon (closest relative) of Xenosauridae, compelling the authors of the monograph to create a new clade called Carusioidea to include both taxa.[2]
Like xenosaurids, Carusia has a skull roof covered in large rounded osteoderms (bony plates embedded in the skin). It also shares with xenosaurids closely spaced orbits (eye sockets) with fused frontal bones between them, and a connection between the jugal and squamosal bones. However, many other features of its skull set it apart from xenosaurids, including the lack of a lacrimal bone, the wideness of the palatine bone, and the small size and high number of teeth in its jaws.[2]
References[]
- ^ Borsuk-Bialynicka, M. (1987). "Carusia, a new name for the Late Cretaceous lizard Carolina Borsuk-Bialynicka, 1985". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 32 (1–2): 151.
- ^ a b Gao, K.; Norell, M. (1998). "Taxonomic revision of Carusia (Reptilia, Squamata) from the late Cretaceous of the Gobi Desert and phylogenetic relationships of anguimorphan lizards". American Museum Novitates (3230): 1–55. hdl:2246/3367.
- Carusioidea
- Cretaceous lizards
- Lizard genera
- Late Cretaceous lepidosaurs of Asia
- Fossil taxa described in 1985
- Prehistoric lizard stubs