Pennington Point, 20 m east River Sid outfall, Fodonyx skull (Triassic of the United Kingdom)

Where: England, United Kingdom (50.7° N, 3.3° W: paleocoordinates 13.4° N, 10.8° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Otter Sandstone Formation (Sherwood Sandstone Group), Anisian (247.2 - 242.0 Ma)

• "Stratigraphically, the skull was found about 3 m below the top of Andy Newell’s Unit C, the Pennington Point Member of Gallois, and layer 21 of Hounslow and McIntosh (2003). According to the magnetostratigraphy of these authors, the age of this horizon is within the late Illyrian (latest Anisian), equivalent to the lower part of the Tethyian P. trammeri (conodont) Zone."

•

•"The [Otter Sandstone Formation] is dated as Anisian on the basis of faunal comparisons and matching with palynologically dated units in the English Midlands... This has since been confirmed by magnetostratigraphy (Hounslow and McIntosh 2003), who found that the lower parts of the Otter Sandstone Formation correspond to the early and mid Anisian, and the upper parts, which contain the majority of the macrofossils correlate with late Anisian and latest Anisian magnetozones on the marine standard."

• formation-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; sandstone

• "The middle and upper parts of the formation are of fluvial origin; sandstones were deposited by ephemeral braided streams flowing from the south and south-west. The comparatively thin mudstones are interpreted as the deposits of temporary lakes on the floodplain. The calcretes indicate subaerial soil and subsurface calcrete formation in semi-arid conditions. The climate was semi-arid, with long periods when river beds dried out, and seasonal or occasional rains leading to violent river action and flash floods."

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by Mark Hounslow in 1999

Collection methods: quarrying

Primary reference: D. W. E. Hone and M. J. Benton. 2008. A New Genus of Rhynchosaur from the Middle Triassic of South-West England. Palaeontology 51(1):95-115 [J. Mueller/T. Liebrecht/T. Liebrecht]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 88974: authorized by Richard Butler, entered by Richard Butler on 27.04.2009

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Reptilia
 Rhynchosauria - Rhynchosauridae
Bentonyx sidensis n. gen. n. sp.
Bentonyx sidensis n. gen. n. sp. Langer et al. 2010 rhynchosaur
BRSUG 27200, nearly complete articulated skull