''Aphanizocnemus'' is an extinct

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

of lizard from

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

. It is a marine lizard that lived during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

. It is often classified in the family

Dolichosauridae Dolichosauridae (from Latin, ''dolichos'' = "long" and Greek ''sauros''= lizard) is a family of Cretaceous aquatic ophidiomorphan lizards closely related to the snakes and mosasaurs. Description ''Dolichosaurus'' was a small marine squamat ...

as a close relative of snakes, although some studies have placed it as an even closer relative to snakes than dolichosaurids. Only one species of ''Aphanizocnemus'' is known, the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

''A. libanensis''. ''A. libanensis'' was named in 1997 on the basis of a single complete skeleton. Although the type locality is unknown, it is said to "almost certainly" originate from the

Sannine Formation The Sannine Formation, also called the Sannine Limestone, is a Cretaceous geologic formation in Lebanon. Description It is primarily Cenomanian in age. The formation laterally varies from east to west; the western lowland "coastal" sequence i ...

. ''Aphanizocnemus'' is about long, and the tail makes up half of its length. The hands and feet are very large in comparison to the limb bones. The flattened shape of the phalanges, or finger bones, suggests that the limbs of ''Aphanizocnemus'' formed paddles. Long projections of bone in the tail called chevrons give the tail a flattened, paddle-like shape. ''Aphanizocnemus'' was well adapted for an aquatic lifestyle, and probably spent much of its time swimming at the bottom of shallow lagoons.

References

Cretaceous lizards Extinct animals of Asia Fossil taxa described in 1997 {{paleo-lizard-stub