Hovasaurus

Hovasaurus
Temporal range: 252.3–247.2 Ma
Hovasaurus BW.jpg
Life restoration of Hovasaurus boulei
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Family: Tangasauridae
Genus: Hovasaurus
Piveteau, 1926
Type species
Hovasaurus boulei
Piveteau, 1926

Hovasaurus is an extinct genus of diapsid reptile belonging to the order Eosuchia. It lived in what is now Madagascar during the Late Permian and Early Triassic, being a survivor of the Permian–Triassic extinction event and the paleontologically youngest member of the Tangasauridae. Fossils have been found in the Permian Lower and Triassic Middle Sakamena Formations of the Sakamena Group, where it is amongst the commonest fossils. Its morphology suggests an aquatic ecology.

Description

Specimen with gastroliths

Hovasaurus resembled a slender lizard, two thirds of total length was taken up by its long tail. It had snout-vent length up to 35 centimetres (14 in) long, with 60 centimetres (24 in) long tail. It was well adapted to an aquatic life, with the tail being laterally flattened like that of a sea snake. Some stones have been found in the abdomen of fossil Hovasaurus, indicating the creatures swallowed these for ballast, preventing them from floating to the surface when hunting fish.

Paleoenvironment

The Lower Sakamamena Formation was deposited in a wetland environment situated within a North-South orientated rift valley, perhaps similar to Lake Tanganyika. The climate at the time of deposition was temperate, warm, and humid, with seasonal rainfall and possible monsoons Flora from the formation includes the equisetalean Schizoneura, Glossopteris, and seed fern Lepidopteris. Other vertebrates known from the Lower Sakamena Formation include the palaeoniscoid fish Atherstonia, the procolophonid parareptile Barasaurus, the gliding weigeltisaurid reptile Coelurosauravus, neodiapsids Claudiosaurus, Thadeosaurus, and Acerodontosaurus, fragments of rhinesuchid temnospondyls, an indeteriminate theriodont therapsid and the dicynodont Oudenodon.



This page was last updated at 2023-02-10 05:21 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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