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Ectenosaurus shannoni
Taxonomy
Ectenosaurus shannoni was named by Kiernan and Ebersole (2023). Its type specimen is ALMNH:Paleo:5452, a partial skeleton (Several bones from a disarticulated skull and axial skeleton, including the frontal, parietal, right splenial, right coronoid, a fragment of the left quadrate, ), and it is a 3D body fossil. Its type locality is Greene County (Mooreville Chalk), which is in a Campanian marine horizon in the Mooreville Chalk Formation of Alabama.
Synonymy list
| Year | Name and author |
|---|---|
| 2023 | Ectenosaurus shannoni Kiernan and Ebersole pp. 16-17 |
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If no rank is listed, the taxon is considered an unranked clade in modern classifications. Ranks may be repeated or presented in the wrong order because authors working on different parts of the classification may disagree about how to rank taxa.
†Ectenosaurus shannoni Kiernan and Ebersole 2023
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Diagnosis
| Reference | Diagnosis | |
|---|---|---|
| C. R. Kiernan and J. A. Ebersole 2023 | A medium-sized plioplatecarpine mosasaur referable to a new species of Ectenosaurus based on the structure of the frontal, which possesses the following
characteristics: a) a dorsal surface entirely lacking a median ridge, but with transverse doming anteriorly; b) a parietal dorsal table with rounded lateral margins and lacking parasagittal crest; c) a splenial with an elliptical posterior articulating surface. The species can be further distinguished from Ectenosaurus clidastoides and SMU 7650 by the simpler contact between the frontal and parietal and by a relatively shorter frontal. It can be distinguished from E. everhartorum and E. clidastoides by the form of the posterior terminus of the splenial, which is neither square nor rounded, but elliptical. Characteristics separating Ectenosaurus shannoni sp. nov. from E. tlemonectes include the absence of a median ridge on the frontal in E shannoni, the general ventral morphology of the frontal, a more elaborate sutural mode of contact between the coronoid and surangular in E shannoni, the differences in the splenio-angular joint between the two taxa, and a greater degree of fusion between the supra- and infrastapedial processes of the quadrate in E. tlemonectes. |