Batten El Ghazel (Jurassic to of Tunisia)

Where: Tataouine, Tunisia (32.7° N, 10.2° E: paleocoordinates 17.8° N, 11.9° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Douiret Sand Member (Douiret Formation), Kimmeridgian to Kimmeridgian (157.3 - 100.5 Ma)

• Dridi, 2020: The tooth assemblage occurs in the Sand Member of the Douiret Formation. As mentioned above, the Douiret Formation represents the uppermost sequence of the Asfer Group (Busson, 1967; Ouaja, 2003). It overlays alternating sequences of silt, clay, and dolomite, dating from the Late Jurassic, and is capped by fluvial to tidal deposits of the Aïn El Guettar Formation, which is Aptian-Albian in age (Benton et al., 2000; Dridi, 2018). Here, I do not provide an accurate age for this stratigraphic interval but show that the possibility of a Late Jurassic-lower Early Cretaceous age cannot be rejected for at least five stratigraphic, sedimentological, and paleontological reasons.

• formation-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: marginal marine; fine-grained, silty, sandy limestone

• Dridi, 2020: This member has been interpreted to represent a marginal to shallow marine depositional environment crisscrossed by tidal channels (Benton et al., 2000; Ouaja, 2003; Barale and Ouaja, 2002; Srarfi et al., 2004; Fanti et al., 2012; Fanti et al., 2016; Dridi et al., 2017).
• Dridi, 2020: The Lower Member of the Douiret Formation is composed of repeating finning-up sequences of finely-grained sand, silty clay, and finely bioclastic dolomitic limestone or dolomite.

Size class: macrofossils

• Dridi, 2020: Most of the specimens are incomplete or highly warn.

Collected in 2018

• Dridi, 2020: The fossils described herein were recovered from the same stratigraphic level. The preserved ones are currently housed in the Museum of Geology of the Office National des Mines (ONM) under the following accession numbers: ONM BNG 1-6 (Morphotype 1); ONM BNG 7-8 (Mor- photype 2); ONM BNG 9-11 (Morphotype 3); ONM BNG 12-17 (Morphotype 4); ONM BNG 18-26 (Morphotype 5).

Primary reference: J. Dridi. 2020. A new crocodylomorph tooth assemblage from the Tataouine Basin and comments on the stratigraphic context of the Douiret Formation. Annales de Paléontologie 106(4) [P. Mannion/G. Varnham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 224052: authorized by Philip Mannion, entered by Grace Varnham on 10.01.2022

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• Dridi, 2020: Several crocodylomorph teeth were recovered in association with remains of pterosaurs, chelonians, actinopterygians, and hybodontiforms.
Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Loricata -
Crocodylomorpha indet., Teleosauroidea indet., cf. Machimosaurus sp., Machimosaurus sp.
Crocodylomorpha indet. Hay 1930 crocodilian
ONM BNG 12–17 (morphotype 4); ONM BNG 18–26 (morphotype 5)
Teleosauroidea indet. Saint-Hilaire 1831 marine crocodile
ONM BNG 9–11
cf. Machimosaurus sp. marine crocodile
ONM BNG 7 and ONM BNG 8 (This morphotype includes two thecodont teeth, which are poorly preserved. ONM BNG 8 is incomplete, while ONM BNG 7 only lacks part of its basal region (Fig. 4A–E).)
Machimosaurus sp. marine crocodile
ONM BNG 1–6