The Luoping Fauna is a fossil assemblage preserved in the Early Middle Triassic strata of Luoping area, Yunnan Province, my country. Similar fossil assemblages are also found in Panxian County, Guizhou Province, and are thus known as the Panxian Fauna. For a long time, the Luoping Fauna has been rich in marine fossils, including various reptiles, fish, and invertebrates, and is therefore considered a typical representative of the Triassic marine revival after the Permian-Triassic extinction event. The marine reptiles in the Luoping Fauna include a rich variety of ichthyosaurs, pterygosaurids, and protosaurids, along with various associated animals. All the fossil evidence here indicates that the Luoping area was a warm and vast shallow sea environment 240 million years ago. However, recent discoveries suggest that there may have been undiscovered localized landmasses here.
In a recent issue of the Journal of Paleontology, researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, named a new type of protosaurid fossil. This small reptile, about 30 centimeters long, has a slender body, well-developed limbs, and fine, comb-like teeth. It is called Pectodens zhenyuensis. Its body structure indicates that it was a terrestrial animal, and the fossil shows typical in-situ burial characteristics—a complete skeleton naturally connected. Therefore, the researchers judged that although the fossil was produced in strata representing a marine environment and was associated with various marine organisms, there must have been a prehistoric land of some scale near the site.
Figure 1. Pectodens zhenyuensis (Photo provided by Li Chun)
