Dutch Triassic reptile discovery

Anarosaurus heterodontus humeri

5 August 2010.

In Winterswijk in the Netherlands, Triassic aquatic reptiles have been discovered, including Nothosaurus winkelhorsti.

Also, other fossils of aquatic reptiles from that time were found. Including an Anarosaurus heterodontus jawbone. Dutch radio interviewed palaeontologist Martijn Guliker about it.

This species is a pachypleurosaur, related to nothosaurs, and, more distantly, to plesiosaurs.

Drepanosaurus lived in the forests of Europe, at least in the area of modern North Italy, about 215-200 million years ago, during the late Triassic. Maybe this was one of the last arboreal reptiles of the Mesozoic, before the mass-extinction at the end of the Triassic. Afterward, trees remained mostly populated by little mammals, insects and the first birds.