@article{4e54327f7c2e41338b522cd0c9ded893,
title = "A new rhynchocephalian (Reptilia: Lepidosauria) from the late Jurassic of solnhofen (Germany) and the origin of the marine pleurosauridae",
abstract = "A new rhynchocephalian is described based on a recently discovered and well-preserved specimen from the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian) marine limestones of Solnhofen, Bavaria. Phylogenetic analysis recovers the new taxon as the sister group to Pleurosauridae, a small radiation of rhynchocephalians representing the oldest marine invasion of crown-clade Lepidosauria. The relatively strong evidence for this taxonomically exclusive lineage, within a generally volatile rhynchocephalian tree, places the new taxon in a position to inform the early history of the pleurosaur transition to the sea. The early steps in this transition are distributed throughout the skeleton and appear to increase hydrodynamic efficiency for both swimming and aquatic feeding. This early history may also have included a global truncation of plesiomorphic ontogenetic trajectories that left a number of skeletal features with reduced levels of ossification/fusion. The exact degree to which Vadasaurus had adopted an aquatic ecology remains unclear, but the insight it provides into the origin of the enigmatic pleurosaurs exemplifies the potential of Rhynchocephalia for generating and informing broad-based questions regarding the interplay of development, morphology, ecology and macroevolutionary patterns.",
keywords = "Bavaria, Marine reptile, Secondarily aquatic, Skeletal development, Sphenodontia, Tethys",
author = "Bever, {Gabriel S.} and Marka Norell",
note = "Funding Information: Ethics. AMNH FARB 32768 was legally acquired by the American Museum of Natural History in 2015 and is permanently reposited at the AMNH. It was legally collected from private land. Detailed acquisition and locality information are available from the AMNH upon request. Data accessibility. Electronic supplementary material, S1–S6, are included as supplementary files at Royal Society Open Science. Author contributions. G.S.B. and M.A.N. conceived the project. G.S.B. acquired and analysed the data. G.S.B. and M.A.N. interpreted the data. G.S.B. drafted the manuscript, and both the authors contributed to the final product. Competing interests. We have no competing interests. Funding. Funding and institutional support was provided by the American Museum of Natural History and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Acknowledgements. We thank Amy Balanoff, Elizabeth Ferrar and Aneila Hogan for both technical assistance and substantive discussion. The project benefited from the efforts of Mick Ellison who prepared the figures and reconstructions. Lynn Merrill assisted with the CT imaging. We thank Raimund Albersdoerfer for supplying the specimen. We greatly appreciate the helpful reviews of Michael Benton, Marc Jones and an anonymous referee. We thank the American Museum of Natural History, Division of Paleontology, and the Macaulay family for their support. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2017 The Authors.",
year = "2017",
month = nov,
day = "8",
doi = "10.1098/rsos.170570",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "4",
journal = "Royal Society Open Science",
issn = "2054-5703",
publisher = "The Royal Society",
number = "11",
}