Dinocephalosaurus

Dinocephalosaurus is a genus of long necked, aquatic Archosaurs which lived in the Triassic seas. Its fossils are found in 244 ± 1.3 million year old rocks.

Dinocephalosaurus
File:Dinocephalosaurus-3a.jpg
Photograph (a) of specimen LPV 30280, which contains an fetus (c) and a perleidid fish (e)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Family:	Tanystropheidae
Genus:	Dinocephalosaurus Li, 2003
Species:	D. orientalis
Binomial name
Dinocephalosaurus orientalis Li, 2003

Didocephalosaurus means "terrible headed lizard". The first specimen found was just a skull, discovered near Xinmin in Guizhou Province, China in 2002. The second specimen found nearby, and was the head and much of the postcrainal skeleton, minus the tail. Dinocephalosaurus is the "first record of protorosaurid reptile (Order Protorosauria) from the Middle Triassic of China".

A new specimen found in Yunnan Province, southern China, showed evidence of live births (ovoviviparity). This is the earliest known example of this in the large group of tetrapods which includes dinosaurs, crocodiles, pterosaurs and birds.

Dinocephalosaurus Media

• Location of Luoping within Yunnan (China).png

  Location of Luoping in Yunnan, China; Panxian is located in the neighboring Guizhou, to the east

• Dinocephalosaurus-2.jpg

  Map showing the location of Panxian and Luoping during the Anisian (a), with stratigraphic position of Luoping Dinocephalosaurus (b)

• Dinocephalosaurus Scale 2.svg

  Size comparison of Dinocephalosaurus a weird Triassic reptile. Based on

• Dinocephalosaurus BW.jpg
• Dinocephalosaurus skull.png

  Skull of the holotype specimen IVPP V13767, with label 42-1 indicating the missing rear process of the jugal

• Dinocephalosaurus (ZMNH M8728).png

  Photograph (a) and interpretive drawing (b) of ZMNH M8728; note the long neck

• Dinocephalosaurus (Skeletal reconstruction).png

  Restoration of Dinocephalosaurus orientalis. The skeleton in left lateral view with a silhouette of a diver for scale. Abbreviations; ect = ectopterygoid; fr = frontal; j = jugal; la = lacrimal; mx = maxilla; na = nasal; pa = parietal; pal = palatine; pm = premaxilla; po = postorbital; pof = postfrontal; prf = prefrontal; pt = pterygoid; q = quadrate; sq = squamosal; vo = vomer.

• Tanystropheus NT small.jpg

  Dinocephalosaurus and its close relative Tanystropheus, shown here, evolved their long necks convergently

• Pectodens fossil.png

  The terrestrial Pectodens was the closest relative of Dinocephalosaurus in the Dinocephalosauridae

• DinocephalosaurusFetus4TC.jpg

  Life reconstruction of LPV 30280, shown eating a perleidid fish and bearing an embryo

• Aside from Dinocephalosaurus, metriorhynchids such as Metriorhynchus represent the only viviparous archosauromorphs