Kaosaurus: un nouveau taxon de Sauropsida provenant du Maastrichtien marin épicontinental du bassin des Iullemmeden, Niger
Résumé
Since 2001, we examined some sets of cranial bones and carapacial plates coming from Maastrichtian levels of In Daman (Niger). This study resulted in the description of Kaosaurus spiniferus (Michaut, 2002). Like Testudines, Kaosaurus shows a rigid carapace and also, but in a very more accentuated manner, a vertebral column involution. Vertebrae are virtually absent and, like Testudines one's, its ribs are connected together by lamellar frontal osseous expansions. New investigations, in 2005 and 2006, allowed us to clarify reconstruction, ecology and palaeogeographical extension of the species. Now we are able to propose a plausible phyletic position for Kaosaurus, as the sister-group of Testudines. Nevertheless this hypothesis must to be refined and definitely proved by means of more entire fossils discoveries.
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