Cyamodontid
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Cyamodus Temporal range: Middle Triassic 247–235 Ma |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | †Sauropterygia |
| Order: | †Placodontia |
| Family: | †Cyamodontidae |
| Genus: |
†Cyamodus Meyer, 1863 |
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Cyamodus (pron.: SIE-ah-MO-dus) is a genus of placodonts discovered from fossil remains in Germany in the early-to-mid-19th century and was named by Christian Erich Hermann von Meyer in 1863. The fossils have been dated to the Triassic Period, from the Anisian to Ladinian stages. Considered a possible turtle ancestor due to its wide flattened torso covered in dermal ossicles, but now is considered to only be closely related. Derived from a sister to Paraplacodus, Cyamodus phylogenetically preceded Placochelys.
Meyer (1863) created the genus name Cyamodus for the "Schnabelplacodus" Cyamodus rostratus holotype skull material from Bindlach, which is today preserved and displayed in the Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken, Bayreuth.
Cyamodus is the type genus of the monotypic family Cyamodontidae.
Thus far, five species of Cyamodus have been identified - C. rostratus, C. munsteri, C. tarnowitzensis, C. hildegardis, and C. kuhnschneyderi.
Initially considered to be an ancestral turtle due to its testudine-like head and large, bifurcated carapace. However further investigation resulted in its reclassification as a placodont, and it is closely related to other turtle-like reptiles of the Triassic period such as Henodus and Psephoderma. Similar to these other placodonts, Cyamodus made its living by hovering close to the sea floor, vacuuming up various shellfish, and grinding them between its blunt teeth.
Historically, the first Cyamodus remains were found in Upper Muschelkalk shallow marine limestones at near Bayreuth in Bavaria (Germany). They included the incomplete holotype skulls of Cyamodus muensteri and Cyamodus rostatus, which along with all other placodont remains recovered from the six quarries on the Lainecker Range in northern Bavaria were originally considered to have been derived from fish. The earliest Cyamodus skull was later restored by Muenster, with the addition of four teeth that had not been present in the original skull, and was named placodus muensteri.
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Wikipedia