Unraveling the mystery of an extinct reptile: MALERISAURUS!

December 20, 2021

Unraveling the mystery of an extinct reptile: MALERISAURUS!

Congratulations to VMNH Assistant Curator of Paleontology Dr. Adam Pritchard and VMNH Research Associates Dr. Sterling Nesbitt, Dr. Michelle Stocker, Dr. Nicholas Fraser, and Dr. Andrew Heckert, who served on an international team that recently authored the paper "Widespread azendohsaurids (Archosauromorpha, Allokotosauria) from the Late Triassic of western USA and India", which is now published in The Palaeontological Association's "Papers in Paleontology".

In the paper, the paleontology team brought together information from museum collections on five continents to unravel the mystery of an extinct reptile: Malerisaurus. Resembling a long-necked Komodo dragon, Malerisaurus fossils from the time of Pangaea are now known from collections across the western United States and India. With its sharp, serrated teeth, Malerisaurus was a predator in its ecosystem.

For the paper, Dr. Pritchard provided data about new malerisaur fossils from Texas and New Mexico, as well as developed the evolutionary tree analysis.

You can now read the entire paper online at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/spp2.1413