Lacertidae Oppel 1811
Creators: name: Ivanov, Martin
name: Čerňanský, Andrej
name: Bonilla-Salomón, Isaac
name: Luján, Àngel Hernández
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Lacertidae

description: LACERTIDAE indet. tooth morphotype 1 (Fig. 2 C-G)
MATERIAL. — MWQ, early Miocene, Burdigalian, Orleanian, MN 4: 1/2001 Turtle Joint: One left dentary (Pal. 1400). 2/2003 Reptile Joint: one right maxilla (Pal. 1566), 3 dentaries, 1 left + 2 right (Pal. 1567-1569).
DESCRIPTION
Maxilla
Only a small fragment of the right maxilla is preserved (Fig. 2C, D). This portion bears two teeth, which are bordered dorsally by the supradental shelf. The lateral surface is pierced by a large labial foramen.
Dentary
The description is based on two fragments – one represents a left dentary, whereas the second is a right dentary. The left dentary fragment (Fig. 2E, F) bears four tooth positions (two teeth are still attached). The right dentary (Fig. 2G) exhibits five and half tooth positions (four teeth are still attached, but the tooth crown of one tooth is broken off). The dental crest is low, and teeth exceed it by 1/2 of their height. The subdental shelf (sensu Rage & Augé 2010) is well developed, robust. However only its short portion is preserved. It gradually becomes thinner posteriorly (this can be observed mainly in the right dentary fragment), partly as a result of the presence of the facet for the splenial, situated on its ventral margin. The shelf forms the dorsal roof of the Meckel’s groove, which is open but narrow. The lateral surface of the bone is smooth. In the preserved section, it is pierced by two labial foramina located slightly above the mid-section of the bone.
Dentition
The implantation is pleurodont.Teeth are high. The interdental gaps are large – the size of the gap forms approximately the 1/2 of the mesiodistal length of the tooth neck. The tooth crowns are bicuspid with a dominant distal (central) cusp and a smaller mesial cusp. The distal cusp is pointed in most cases and slightly directed posterolingually. The lingual portion of the crowns bears vertical striations. The striae are almost parallel, and their number is around ten. The tooth necks are slightly expanded lingually and they appear lightly more swollen if compared to the tooth crowns. The central part of the tooth base is pierced by a small resorption pit.
REMARKS
The maxilla and dentary have identical tooth morphology and thus can be attributed to the single taxon. Several features in the material from Mokrá described here resemble Lacerta poncenatensis: 1) the presence of robust bicuspid teeth; 2) the wide interdental gaps; and 3) the low dental crest. This taxon was originally described by Müller (1996) from the French locality of Poncenat (early Miocene, MN 2a). Later, it was also recognized in Germany (Čerňanský et al. 2015; early Miocene, MN 2) and Austria (Čerňanský 2016; early Miocene, MN 4). However, the fragmentary nature of the Mokrá material does not allow confident alpha taxonomy.
description: Published as part of Ivanov, Martin, Čerňanský, Andrej, Bonilla-Salomón, Isaac & Luján, Àngel Hernández, 2020, Early Miocene squamate assemblage from the Mokrá-Western Quarry (Czech Republic) and its palaeobiogeographical and palaeoenvironmental implications, pp. 343-376 in Geodiversitas 42 (20) on page 348, DOI: 10.5252/geodiversitas2020v42a20, http://zenodo.org/record/4447563