中国北方一晚三叠世四足动物化石新地点

A new Late Triassic tetrapod locality from North China

中国北方还没有发现过确凿无疑的晚三叠世的四足动物化石。报道了河南省济源市的一个四足动物化石新地点(柿沟)。化石产自晚三叠世谭庄组。目前采集到的标本大部分可以归入离片椎类,并显示出与乳齿鲵(Mastodonsaurus)的高度相似性。之前,乳齿鲵只在欧洲有记录。因此这一发现表明乳齿鲵这一支系在晚三叠世曾广泛分布于欧洲与东亚地区。一块疑似腰带化石指示还有另一类四足动物共存。这一发现填补了我国晚三叠世四足动物实体化石记录的一个空白。

No definite tetrapod body fossil is known from the Late Triassic of North China. Here we report new tetrapod remains from the Upper Triassic Tanzhuang Formation of Jiyuan, Henan Province. Most of the specimens can be referred to the temnospondyls, and show affinity with Mastodonsaurus. Previously, Mastodonsaurus is only know from Europe. So that, this finding indicates that a clade including Mastodonsaurus and its close relatives had a wide distribution from Europe to East Asia during the Late Triassic. A possible pelvis indicates the presence of another tetrapod group. This discovery fills a tetrapod body record gap in Chinese Late Triassic.