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The South African stereospondyl Lydekkerina huxleyi (Tetrapoda, Temnospondyli) from the Lower Triassic of Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 September 2006

A. A. WARREN
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia
R. DAMIANI
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia Present address: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Rosenstein 1, D-70191 Stuttgart, Germany
A. M. YATES
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia Present address: Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research, School of Geosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract

The first tetrapod fossil from the Rewan Formation of the Galilee Basin, central Queensland, Australia, is identified as Lydekkerina huxleyi, a stereospondyl found elsewhere only in the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone of South Africa. Apomorphies shared with L. huxleyi are: anterior palatal vacuity with anterodorsal projections from its posterior margin; ventral surface of skull roof with series of thickened ridges (condition unknown in other lydekkerinids); and vomerine shagreen present (possible autapomorphic reversal). Restudy of the only other Australian lydekkerinid, Chomatobatrachus halei, shows it to be distinct from L. huxleyi. The Rewan Formation, undifferentiated in the Galilee Basin, can be correlated with the Rewan Group of the Bowen Basin, and to the early part of the Lystrosaurus Assemblage Zone of the Karoo Basin, South Africa, which are of Griesbachian age. Varying palaeoenvironments may contribute to the contrasting nature of the Australian and South African faunas.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

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