The morphology and histology of a juvenile Sinokannemeyeria from the Middle Triassic Ermaying Formation of Shanxi, North China

Abstract

Kannemeyeriiformes were dominated tetrapods in the Middle Triassic terrestrial faunae of China. Although abundant materials of Sinokannemeyeria have been collected, their postcranial morphology information is not well studied, especially the juveniles. This paper presents a description of an articulated Sinokannemeyeria skeleton from the Middle Triassic Ermaying Formation and reports the histological microstructure of its femur. This specimen represents a late-stage juvenile based on the histological information. For the first time, this specimen offers insights into the postcrania information of juvenile Sinokannemeyeria.

Keywords

Tetrapods / Sinokannemeyeria / Histology / Bone microstructure / Middle Triassic / Geological survey engineering

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Li-juan Xie conceived the idea. Li-juan Xie and Jian Yi wrote the manuscript and prepared all the figures. Jian Yi performed the experiments. Jian-ru Shi and Run-fu Wang managed the project, Shi-chao Xu, Zhi-shuai Kang participated the field work. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

This work was jointly supported by Department of Natural Resources of Shanxi Province and the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB26000000).

The authors are grateful to Zhi-lu Tang of IVPP and Xiaochun Wu of Canadian Museum of Nature (CMN) for their assistance in all stages of this work, to Suo-zhu Wang of SXMG for his remarkable work in the field, to Yu-qing Zhang for his skillful preparation on the specimen, to Ran Guo of SXMG for photography, to Jun Liu and Qi Zhao of IVPP for valuable comments, to Yu-tai Shi of IVPP for improvement of writing, to the Assess Committee of Chinese Vertebrate Paleontological Experts for support. The authors also appreciate two anonymous referees carefully reviewed the manuscript, offering critical comments and suggestions that led to its great improvement.

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