We describe the first partially articulated specimen of Ophisaurus (Anguimorpha, Anguinae) from the middle Miocene (MN 7) locality Öhningen, in Germany. This is the first time that the preservation of a specimen of Ophisaurus allows cranial and postcranial elements to be allocated to the same species. High-resolution X-ray computed tomography reveals a completely preserved parietal, identifying the specimen as belonging to the species Ophisaurus holeci. This species was previously known on the basis of frontal and parietal bones from the early Miocene of the Czech Republic and Germany. The specimen from Öhningen also preserves the right pelvic girdle, consisting of a well-preserved ilium and partially preserved pubis and ischium; a limb is not preserved. Within fossil Anguinae, there is only one specimen of Ophisaurus in which a similarly preserved pelvic girdle is present. This specimen is from the middle Miocene of Slovakia, and the morphology of its pelvic girdle is revised here. The morphology of the pelvic girdles of both these Miocene specimens is very similar to that of Ophisauriscus quadrupes, a possible anguine from the middle Eocene of Germany, a form that retains small limbs. The anatomy of the pelvic girdles of all three fossil lizards and comparisons with those of extant limbed and legless lizards indicates that the two Miocene anguines studied here may have possessed small, but functional limbs.
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1 July 2017
A Skeleton of Ophisaurus (Squamata: Anguidae) from the Middle Miocene of Germany, with a Revision of the Partly Articulated Postcranial Material from Slovakia Using Micro-Computed Tomography
Andrej Čerňanský,
Jozef Klembara
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Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
Vol. 37 • No. 4
July 2017
Vol. 37 • No. 4
July 2017