Yuanansuchus maopingchangensis: a new Capitosauroid Temnospondyl From Middle Triassic China

Yuanansuchus maopingchangensis sp. nov., the second capitosauroid temnospondyl from the Middle Triassic Badong Formation of Yuanan, Hubei, China

Author:

Liu

Abstract:

A second species of Yuanansuchus, Y. maopingchangensis, is erected for new temnospondyl material from the Maopingchang site, Yuanan County, Hubei Province, China. These specimens are from the same horizon that produced Y. laticeps, the type species. Y. maopingchangensis shares the following features with Y. laticeps: postorbital portion of skull occupied more than 1/3 of skull length; tabular horn directed laterally; lateral line sulci continuous, well impressed; supraorbital sensory canal enters lacrimal; preorbital projection of jugal less than half length of snout; and vomerine plate short. However, Y. maopingchangensis differs from Y. laticeps in having an elongated skull, frontal extending posteriorly to the level of the posterior orbital margin, closed otic fenestra, cultriform process of parasphenoid extending to the level of the anterior margin of the interpterygoid vacuities, and absence of fodina vomeralis. Analysis of a new capitosaur phylogenetic data matrix, containing 56 characters and 29 species, confirms that the two species from Yuanan are sister taxa and that Capitosauroidea can be divided into two major clades: one including Parotosuchus, Eryosuchus, Calmasuchus and Cherninia, and another including Mastodonsaurus, Yuanansuchus, Stanocephalosaurus, Procyclotosaurus, Paracyclotosaurus, Antarctosuchus, Eocyclotosaurus, Quasicyclotosaurus, Tatrasuchus and Cyclotosaurus.

China Majorly Upgrading China Jinping Underground Laboratory

For certain physics experiments, deeper is better. Since it opened in 2010, the China Jinping Underground Laboratory (CJPL)—in a hollowed-out cavern along a tunnel in Sichuan province—has been the world's deepest underground laboratory. Two thousand four hundred meters of rock have shielded its experimental chambers from background radiation that might mask the extremely subtle traces of dark matter, the universe's postulated missing mass. CJPL's observational capabilities were limited by its mere 4000-cubic-meter size. It is about to grow to 120,000 cubic meters, making it the world's second largest underground lab and positioning it to make breakthrough contributions to fundamental investigations into dark matter, neutrinos, and conditions in the early universe.

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