Hairy Museum of Natural History

As long as I’ve got some posts lined up about the Coelophysis population from the Whitaker Quarry at Ghost Ranch, it only seems appropriate to work in this little bit of month-old news: a new sphenodontian, a small, superficially lizard-like reptile related to the tuatara, known from some partial jaws found in a block from the Whitaker Quarry:

• 
• Whitakersaurus bermani
  Drawing by me, from the day job.

• New Sphenodontian: Whitakersaurus bermani
• Name Means: Berman’s Whitaker lizard.
  (George Whitaker discovered the Coelophysis Quarry where this fossil was found, and David Berman’s fieldwork led to the recovery of the block that contained the type specimen.)
• Relations: Sphenodontian rhynchocephalian
• Location: New Mexico, U.S.A.
• Age: Late Triassic, ~203,000,000 years ago
• Reference: Heckert, A. B., Lucas, S. G., Rinehart, L. F., & Hunt, A. P., 2008. A new genus and species of sphenodontian from the Ghost Ranch Coelophysis Quarry (Upper Triassic: Apachean), Rock Point Formation, New Mexico, USA. Palaeontology 51 (4): 827-845.
• Web coverage:
  • Chinleana: Latest Literature: August 2008.
  • Santa Fe New Mexican: New Species Emerges from Fossil

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Reptiles, Triassic.