Reconstruction of Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi.
Credit: Beat Scheffold, Paleontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich
Grisons, 241 million years ago --
Instead of amidst high mountains, a small reptile suns itself on an
island beach in a warm shallow sea, where many fish and marine reptiles
frolic. This is the story told by an excellently preserved new discovery
of the reptile Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi studied by paleontologists from the University of Zurich.
About 20 centimeters in length, the Swiss reptile was small and
juvenile, but its skin was already strongly armored with variously
formed smooth, jagged or even thorny osteoderms. Its skeleton indicates a
life on land, even though the animal was found together with fish and
marine reptiles in the 241 million year old calcareous deposits of the
Prosanto Formation near Ducanfurgga at an altitude of 2,740 meters south
of Davos in the canton Grisons, Switzerland. The Swiss-British team of
researchers led by Torsten Scheyer, paleontologist at the University of
Zurich, and James Neenan from the Oxford University Museum of Natural
History therefore assumes that it was washed off a nearby island into
the sea basin and became embedded in the finely layered marine sediments
after death.Skeleton and appearance reconstructed
14 years ago, the species Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi was described using a partially preserved, completely disarticulated sample from the vicinity of the Swiss-Italian UNESCO World Heritage Site Monte San Giorgio. The new find from the Grisons Mountains, on the other hand, is very well-preserved, allowing researchers to reconstruct the skeleton and outward appearance of the animal for the first time.
In the process, they discovered something astonishing: Externally, Eusaurosphargis dalsassoi looks very similar to girdled lizards (Cordylidae), a group of small, scaled reptiles (Lepidosauria) that usually live in the dry regions of southern Africa. Some of the more strongly armored girdled lizard species could have served as the basis of mythical dragon legends due to their appearance. "This is a case of convergent development as the extinct species is not closely related to today's African lizards" , Scheyer explains.
Related to Helveticosaurus
An exact examination of the phylogenetic relationships rather confirms that its closest relatives are marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs (Ichthyosauria or "fish lizards"), sauropterygians (Sauropterygia "lizard flippers") or even Helveticosaurus, a marine reptile that is unique to Switzerland, all of which have been found at Monte San Giorgio. The skeleton of Eusaurosphargis, however, shows neither a streamlined body structure, nor arms and legs that have transformed into flippers, as well as no tail fin, which would indicate a life at sea.
