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Journal of Paleontology

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CONIASAURUS OWEN, 1850 (REPTILIA: SQUAMATA), FROM THE UPPER CRETACEOUS NIOBRARA CHALK OF WESTERN KANSAS

¹ Environmental Science Program and Department of Biological Sciences, DePaul University, 2325 North Clifton Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60614, <kshimada@depaul.edu>,
² Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Fort Hays State University, 3000 Sternberg Drive, Hays, Kansas 67601,
³ Guadalupe Mountains National Park, HC 60 Box 400, Salt Flat, Texas 79847, <gorden_bell@nps.gov>

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

	INTRODUCTION

 
CONIASAURUS OWEN, 1850 was a small (50–100 cm in length) marine lizard that has been sporadically reported from Late Cretaceous marine deposits of Germany, England, and the United States. These deposits were formed throughout the basins of the Tethys and Western Interior Seas (Diedrich, 1997; Caldwell, 1999; Caldwell and Cooper, 1999; Liggett, 2004). Coniasaurus is thus far known only from incomplete specimens. However, sufficient material exists to show that it possessed four short limbs and an elongated skull, neck, trunk, and tail, and was equipped with a specialized dentition (Caldwell and Cooper, 1999). Caldwell and Cooper (1999) inferred that Coniasaurus likely occupied a niche similar to small sauropterygians.

The age of previously reported Coniasaurus material ranges from the Early Cenomanian to at least the end of the Cenomanian in England, and Middle/Late Cenomanian to Middle Turonian in the United States (Caldwell and Cooper, 1999; Liggett et al., 2005). In this paper, we describe a previously unreported, isolated Coniasaurus vertebra (Fig. 1) that is housed in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History at Fort Hays State University (FHSM), Hays, Kansas. The vertebra was recovered from the Santonian portion (ca. 85 Ma) of the Niobrara Chalk of Kansas, and the specimen is noteworthy because it extends the biostratigraphic range of Coniasaurus and adds a new paleoecological component to the Niobrara fauna.

View larger version (92K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIGURE 1—Vertebra of Coniasaurus Owen, 1850 (FHSM VP-2219), from Middle Santonian portion of Niobrara Chalk, Gove County, Kansas. 1, Dorsal view; 2, ventral view; 3, left lateral view; 4, right lateral view;5, anterior view; 6, posterior view (scale = 5 mm; asterisk in 3 highlights the position of the anterior margin of the base of neural spine: see . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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