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Goronyosaurus
''Goronyosaurus'' is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. Fossils of ''Goronyosaurus'' are exclusively known from the Dukamaje Formation of Niger and Nigeria and also the Rima Formation of Nigeria, and are both Maastrichtian in age. The holotype was first described in 1930 as ''Mosasaurus nigeriensis'', but subsequent remains revealed a highly unique set of adaptations that prompted the species to be reclassified as the only species of the new genus ''Goronyosaurus'' in 1972. These unique adaptations have made ''Goronyosaurus'' notoriously difficult to classify within the Mosasauridae and it is often left out of phylogenetic analyses, although most authors agree that ''Goronyosaurus'' belonged to Mosasauridae. ''Goronyosaurus'' possesses unique teeth, which are unlike the teeth of any other mosasaur. Instead of the cutting teeth common among mosasaurs, ''Goronyosaurus'' has straight teeth with rounded apices adapted for smashing food. Discovery a ...
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Goronyosaurus
''Goronyosaurus'' is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. Fossils of ''Goronyosaurus'' are exclusively known from the Dukamaje Formation of Niger and Nigeria and also the Rima Formation of Nigeria, and are both Maastrichtian in age. The holotype was first described in 1930 as ''Mosasaurus nigeriensis'', but subsequent remains revealed a highly unique set of adaptations that prompted the species to be reclassified as the only species of the new genus ''Goronyosaurus'' in 1972. These unique adaptations have made ''Goronyosaurus'' notoriously difficult to classify within the Mosasauridae and it is often left out of phylogenetic analyses, although most authors agree that ''Goronyosaurus'' belonged to Mosasauridae. ''Goronyosaurus'' possesses unique teeth, which are unlike the teeth of any other mosasaur. Instead of the cutting teeth common among mosasaurs, ''Goronyosaurus'' has straight teeth with rounded apices adapted for smashing food. Discovery a ...
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Goronyosaurus Nigeriensis 2
''Goronyosaurus'' is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. Fossils of ''Goronyosaurus'' are exclusively known from the Dukamaje Formation of Niger and Nigeria and also the Rima Formation of Nigeria, and are both Maastrichtian in age. The holotype was first described in 1930 as ''Mosasaurus nigeriensis'', but subsequent remains revealed a highly unique set of adaptations that prompted the species to be reclassified as the only species of the new genus ''Goronyosaurus'' in 1972. These unique adaptations have made ''Goronyosaurus'' notoriously difficult to classify within the Mosasauridae and it is often left out of phylogenetic analyses, although most authors agree that ''Goronyosaurus'' belonged to Mosasauridae. ''Goronyosaurus'' possesses unique teeth, which are unlike the teeth of any other mosasaur. Instead of the cutting teeth common among mosasaurs, ''Goronyosaurus'' has straight teeth with rounded apices adapted for smashing food. Discove ...
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Dukamaje Formation
The Dukamaje Formation is a geological formation in Niger whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosaur distribution (Late Cretaceous, Africa)." In: Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.): The Dinosauria, 2nd, Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 604-605. . A wealth of Mosasaur fossils have also been recovered from this formation, particularly from the area around Mt. Igdaman. Fossil content ;Other reptiles * '' Sokotosuchus ianwilsoni'' * '' Palaeophis sp.'' * '' Podocnemis sp.'' * '' Trematochampsa taqueti'' * '' Libycosuchus sp.'' ;Fishes * '' Asteracanthus aegyptiacus''In Touhout (bed 4)
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Mosasaurus
''Mosasaurus'' (; "lizard of the Meuse River") is the type genus (defining example) of the mosasaurs, an extinct group of aquatic squamate reptiles. It lived from about 82 to 66 million years ago during the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous. The earliest fossils of ''Mosasaurus'' known to science were found as skulls in a chalk quarry near the Dutch city of Maastricht in the late 18th century, which were initially thought to have been the bones of crocodiles or whales. One skull discovered around 1780, and which was seized by France during the French Revolutionary Wars for its scientific value, was famously nicknamed the "great animal of Maastricht". In 1808, naturalist Georges Cuvier concluded that it belonged to a giant marine lizard with similarities to monitor lizards but otherwise unlike any known living animal. This concept was revolutionary at the time and helped support the then-developing ideas of extinction. Cuvier did not designate a scientifi ...
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Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Ital ...
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Plesiotylosaurus
''Plesiotylosaurus'', meaning "near ''Tylosaurus''", is an extinct genus of marine lizard belonging to the mosasaur family. It is classified as part of the Mosasaurinae subfamily, alongside genera like ''Mosasaurus'' and ''Prognathodon''. The genus contains one species, ''Plesiotylosaurus crassidens'', recovered from deposits of Middle Maastrichtian age in the Moreno Formation in California. Though it is classified as a mosasaurine mosasaur, and not closely related to ''Tylosaurus'', the name is not entirely misplaced as a number of cranial features found in the relatively intact holotype skull suggest some degree of convergent evolution with tylosaurine mosasaurs. Description ''Plesiotylosaurus'' was a relatively large mosasaur. The holotype, LACM 2759, consists of a poorly preserved and partially distorted yet almost complete skull and mandibles collected from the Panoche Hills in the Moreno Formation, California. The lower jaw of the holotype skull measures in length, wh ...
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Tylosaurus Nepaeolicus
''Tylosaurus'' (from the ancient Greek (') 'protuberance, knob' + Greek (') 'lizard') is a genus of mosasaur, a large, predatory marine reptile closely related to modern monitor lizards and to snakes, from the Late Cretaceous. Description A distinguishing characteristic of ''Tylosaurus'' is the elongated conical rostrum that protrudes from its snout, from which the genus is named. Unlike typical mosasaurs, ''Tylosaurus'' did not have teeth up to the end of the snout nor on the bony protuberance that is the rostrum, and scientists believe that this feature was primarily used for combative purposes such as ramming. This is supported with a uniquely broad and somewhat rectangular internarial bar (the extension of the premaxilla on the top of the skull that held together the nasal and upper jaws) that provided high cranial stability and resistance to stress forces. In addition, the development of the elongated rostrum in infant ''Tylosaurus'' rules out the alternative explanation ...
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Museo Di Storia Naturale Di Firenze
The Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze is a natural history museum in 6 major collections, located in Florence, Italy. It is part of the University of Florence. Museum collections are open mornings except Wednesday, and all day Saturday; an admission fee is charged. The museum was established on February 21, 1775 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo as the Imperial Regio Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale. At that time it consisted of several natural history collections housed within the palazzo Torrigiani on Via Romana. Through the past two centuries, it has grown significantly and now forms one of the finest collections in Italy. Collections Today's collections are as follows: * Giardino dei Semplici (Via Micheli, 3) - Europe's third oldest botanical garden, established in 1545, now containing some 9,000 plant specimens. * Museo di Botanica (Via La Pira, 4) - a large herbarium of approximately 4 million specimens, including the historic collections of Andrea Cesalpino (1563), claime ...
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Neotype
In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the defining features of that particular taxon. In older usage (pre-1900 in botany), a type was a taxon rather than a specimen. A taxon is a scientifically named grouping of organisms with other like organisms, a set that includes some organisms and excludes others, based on a detailed published description (for example a species description) and on the provision of type material, which is usually available to scientists for examination in a major museum research collection, or similar institution. Type specimen According to a precise set of rules laid down in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN), the scientific name of every taxon is almost a ...
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Geological Survey Of Nigeria
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth sciences, including hydrology, and so is treated as one major aspect of integrated Earth system science and planetary science. Geology describes the structure of the Earth on and beneath its surface, and the processes that have shaped that structure. It also provides tools to determine the relative and absolute ages of rocks found in a given location, and also to describe the histories of those rocks. By combining these tools, geologists are able to chronicle the geological history of the Earth as a whole, and also to demonstrate the age of the Earth. Geology provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and the Earth's past climates. Geologists broadly study the properties and processes of Earth ...
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Cranium
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, these two parts are the neurocranium and the viscerocranium ( facial skeleton) that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior-most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In humans these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton. Functions of the skull include protection of the brain, fixing the distance between the eyes to allow stereoscopic vision, and fixing the position of the ears to enable sound localisation of the direction and distance of sounds. In some animals, such as horned ungulates (mammals with hooves), the skull also has a defensive function by providing the mount (on the fron ...
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Skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, these two parts are the neurocranium and the viscerocranium ( facial skeleton) that includes the mandible as its largest bone. The skull forms the anterior-most portion of the skeleton and is a product of cephalisation—housing the brain, and several sensory structures such as the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. In humans these sensory structures are part of the facial skeleton. Functions of the skull include protection of the brain, fixing the distance between the eyes to allow stereoscopic vision, and fixing the position of the ears to enable sound localisation of the direction and distance of sounds. In some animals, such as horned ungulates (mammals with hooves), the skull also has a defensive function by providing the mount (on the front ...
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