| Asprosaurus Temporal range: Campanian 81 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓ | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Clade: | Monstersauria |
| Genus: | †Asprosaurus Park et al., 2015 |
| Type species | |
| †Asprosaurus bibongriensis Park et al., 2015 | |
Asprosaurus (lit. 'white lizard') is an extinct genus of anguimorph lizard from the Late Cretaceous of South Korea. Named in 2015 from the Seonso Conglomerate Formation, the type species Asprosaurus bibongriensis is the first Mesozoic lizard to have been discovered on the Korean peninsula. Because Asprosaurus is known only from fragmentary material, its relationships with other lizards are uncertain. However, features of the lower jaw suggest that it may be a member of a clade (evolutionary grouping) called Monstersauria, which includes the living Gila monster.
Size
Asprosaurus is among the largest Late Cretaceous terrestrial lizards from Asia described to date, with an estimated skull length of 18–20 cm (7.1–7.9 in). It is probably larger than Chianghsia, whose skull length is estimated up to 17.5–18 cm (6.9–7.1 in) in total and the snout-vent length around 1–1.25 m (3 ft 3 in – 4 ft 1 in).
References
- Kim, J.K.; Kwon, Y.E.; Lee, S.G.; Kim, C.Y.; Kim, J.G.; Huh, M.; Lee, E.; Kim, Y.J. (2017). "Correlative microscopy of the constituents of a dinosaur rib fossil and hosting mudstone: Implications on diagenesis and fossil preservation". PLOS One. 13 (3): e0195421. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0186600. PMC 5648225.
- ^ Park, Jin-Young; Evans, Susan E.; Huh, Min (2015). "The first lizard fossil (Reptilia: Squamata) from the Mesozoic of South Korea" (PDF). Cretaceous Research. 55: 292–302. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2015.03.001.
- Cabezuelo Hernández, T.; Bolet, A.; Torices, A.; Pérez-García, A. (2021). "Identification of a large anguimorph lizard (Reptilia, Squamata) by an articulated hindlimb from the upper Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) of Basturs-1 (Lleida, Spain)". Cretaceous Research. 131: Article 105094. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2021.105094. ISSN 0195-6671. S2CID 244352137.
- Mo, J. Y.; Xu, X.; Evans, S. E. (2012). "A large predatory lizard (Platynota, Squamata) from the Late Cretaceous of South China". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 10 (2): 333. doi:10.1080/14772019.2011.588254. S2CID 85682211.
| Taxon identifiers | |
|---|---|
| Asprosaurus | |
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