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I here describe lacertid and snake remains from the classic Middle Miocene (MN 6) locality Bonanza of the Devínska Kobyla Hill near Bratislava (Slovakia). The locality is famous for being a type locality of an early seal Devinophoca Koretsky & Holec, 2002. During the Middle Miocene, the area of Devínska Nová Ves was part of an archipelago in the western part of the Central Paratethys in the northern part of the Vienna basin. The fossils described here comprise an incomplete left maxilla of a lacertid lizard and an articulated portion of a vertebral column of a small colubrid snake with several ribs still attached. The maxilla is tentativelly allocated here to Lacerta Linnaeus, 1758 and is a rare instance of the occurrence of the clade Lacertidae Oppel, 1811 in this environment during the Middle Miocene. Moreover, it represents the oldest known occurence of this clade in Slovakia. Articulated snake specimens from the Cenozoic are rare and although only party articulated, the specimen from Bonanza is therefore exceptional. On the basis of vertebrae alone, determination of fossil colubrids is very difficult. The morphology of the Bonanza specimen is most similar to the extant Dolichophis Gistel, 1868, as also to other small fossil snakes assigned to 'Coluber' Linnaeus, 1758 when that genus was a catch-all grade taxon recognised from both Europe and North America, notably 'Coluber' dolnicensis Szyndlar, 1987 and 'Coluber' pouchetii (Rochebrune, 1880). Because the potentially closest living relative of the European Miocene 'Coluber' is Dolichophis, I assigned tentatively the material from Bonanza to cf. Dolichophis, rather than to the wastebasket taxon 'Coluber'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we report on anguimorph lizards from the earliest Eocene (MP 7) of the Dormaal locality in Belgium, from the time of the warmest global climate of the past 66 million years. Several clades can be identified in this site: Glyptosauridae, Varanidae, and Palaeovaranidae. Our study focuses on glyptosaurid specimens previously reported from the site, some of which had been provisionally described as a new species,? Placosaurus ragei , and some assigned to an unnamed Placosauriops -like 'melanosaurine'. Our study presents data on new material, including an almost complete glyptosaurine frontal that has enabled us to assign much of the previously described material to a single genus and species. The specimens that had been assigned to both ? P ragei and the 'melanosaurine' share apomorphies (flat osteoderms and chevron-shaped osteoderms) with Gaultia , a glyptosaurid previously known from the earliest Eocene of Wyoming, USA. The Dormaal material represents the first record of this genus outside North America. In fact, the only potential evidence of the occurrence of 'Melanosaurinae' in Dormaal might be a single isolated vertebra described here. Here we also describe previously unfigured material of Saniwa and palaeovaranids from Dormaal. The presence of previously reported helodermatids cannot be supported in this Belgian site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An eosauropterygian skeleton found in the Middle Triassic (upper Anisian) Gutenstein Formation of the Fatric Unit (Demänovská dolina Valley, Low Tatra Mountains, Slovakia) represents the earliest known occurrence of marine tetrapods in the Western Carpathians. The specimen represents a partly articulated portion of the postcranial skeleton (nine dorsal vertebrae, coracoid, ribs, gastral ribs, pelvic girdle, femur and one zeugopodial element). It is assigned to the Pachypleurosauria, more precisely to the Serpianosaurus–Neusticosaurus clade based on the following combination of features: (1) small body size; (2) morphology of vertebrae, ribs and femur; (3) tripartite gastral ribs; and (4) microanatomy of the femur as revealed by μCT. Members of this clade were described from the epicontinental Germanic Basin and the Alpine Triassic (now southern Germany, Switzerland, Italy), and possibly from Spain. This finding shows that pachypleurosaur reptiles attained a broader geographical distribution during the Middle Triassic, with their geographical range reaching to the Central Western Carpathians. Pachypleurosaurs are often found in sediments formed in shallow, hypersaline carbonate-platform environments. The specimen found here occurs in a succession with vermicular limestones in a shallow subtidal zone and stromatolitic limestones in a peritidal zone, indicating that pachypleurosaurs inhabited hypersaline, restricted carbonate ramps in the Western Carpathians.

We studied at least part of Kuhnʼs original material of lizards from the Paleocene (~ MP 5) of the Walbeck locality in Germany. The collection was considered to be lost but is consistently discussed in the literature due to its importance. We restudied the type material of aff. Parasauromalus paleocenicus and aff. Glyptosaurus walbeckensis described by Kuhn in 1940. The former was originally allocated to Iguania, the latter to Anguimorpha, though later on these identifications were questioned by several authors. We show such a classification of both cannot be upheld. P. paleocenicus resembles the morphology of lacertids showing their presence in Europe already around MP 5. We consider the name P. paleocenicus as a nomen dubium. The material of aff. G. walbeckensis was later suggested to belong to Lacertidae and also considered as a potential amphisbaenian. Although it differs from modern amphisbaenians, it shares features with one supposed polyodontobaenid – Camptognathosaurus parisiensis. The Walbeck form is identical to this species. Since the Walbeck taxon was described in 1940, the principle of priority makes Camptognathosaurus parisiensis a junior synonym of the species erected by Kuhn. We propose a new combined name for this form, Camptognathosaurus walbeckensis comb. nov. The specimen figured by Kuhn is currently lost, thus we designate a neotype from Walbeck. However, this taxon differs significantly from Polyodontobaena and new data doubt the attribution of Camptognathosaurus to Amphisbaenia. This taxon is tentatively assigned here to Lacertidae, as further confirmed by phylogenetic analyses. Material of Scincoidea is also described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we describe a new lizard from the early Eocene of the Cos locality in the Quercy region (near the Caylus village, Southwest France). The age of the Cos deposit has been proposed as the MP 10-11 interval, close to the transition of the late Ypresian to early Lutetian. The fossil material includes a nearly complete right maxilla and a large section of the right dentary, both elements attributed to Pan-Gekkota. These specimens are morphologically different from crown gekkotans, therefore, we describe them as a new species. Some aspects of the maxilla are very atypical regarding geckos (e.g., the shape of the facial process). The posterior margin of the facial process slopes down gradually dorsoventrally towards the jugal facet, reaching the posterior end of the maxilla, in contrast to gekkotans, where the facial process ends anterior to the posterior end of the maxilla. A similar maxilla is present in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous pan-gekkotan genus Eichstaettisaurus. This suggests that the new fossil taxon represents either a lineage that persisted from the Mesozoic to the early Eocene in Europe, or perhaps a morphology otherwise unrepresented in crown gekkotans. We allocate this taxon provisionally to Pan-Gekkota, and contribute to increase the diversity of this clade in Western Europe during the Paleogene, which now includes the stratigraphically similarly aged Laonogekko lefevrei from France (MP 10), and older Dollogekko from Belgium (MP 7). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We here report on the first lizard fossils from the Deccan intertrappean strata (latest Cretaceous/Palaeocene) exposed at Kesavi, District Dhar in the Malwa Plateau of lower Narmada Valley, central India. The material is only fragmentary, but tentatively three tooth morphotypes of non-acrodontan lizards can be identified. Besides these, two oblong osteoderms, resembling paramacellodid osteoderms, are described as Squamata indet. The 4th isolated tooth is questionably referred to Squamata. Although the intertrappean deposits of the Deccan volcanic province have been explored for over three decades, lizards are scarce and many aspects remain unclear. However, the tentative absence of agamids in Kesavi and other localities yielding pre-Eocene deposits (e.g., Naskal and Kisalpuri) appears to be interesting, because a high diversity of agamids has been reported from early Eocene localities of India. There is, in contrast, a total absence of non-acrodontan lizards. The contrast between pre-Eocene and Eocene localities seems to be puzzling in the context of India's supposed physical isolation from Asia during this time. Only future researches can shed light on that. Although the material described here brings only limited new insight, it supports that non-acrodontan lizards were present in India during the latest Cretaceous/earliest Palaeocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]