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Introduction
Phylogenetic relationships and ecology of Mesozoic amniotes, especially dinosaurs and plesiosaurs.
Additional affiliations
April 2019 - present
October 2018 - March 2019
October 2014 - December 2018
Publications
Publications (58)
At the climax of their evolutionary history in the latest Cretaceous, ceratopsian dinosaurs were among the most dominant components of North American and Asian land ecosystems. In other continental landmasses, however, ceratopsians were extraordinarily rare and the affinities of their proposed representatives often turned out to be inconclusive. Ar...
Plesiosaurs are Mesozoic reptiles fully adapted to an aquatic lifestyle. Throughout their evolutionary history exceeding 140 million years plesiosaurs dispersed globally, achieved substantial diversity, occupied a variety of ecological niches, and experienced multiple faunal turnovers. Of those, the Early/Middle Jurassic transition event (∼175–171...
Diadectomorpha was a clade of large-bodied stem-amniotes or possibly early-diverging synapsids that established a successful dynasty of late Carboniferous to late Permian high-fiber herbivores. Aside from their fairly rich record of body fossils, diadectomorphs are also well-known from widely distributed tracks and trackways referred to as Ichnioth...
The emergence of gigantic pliosaurid plesiosaurs reshaped the trophic structure of Mesozoic marine ecosystems, and established an ~80 million-year (Ma) dynasty of macropredatory marine reptiles. However, the timescale of their ‘defining’ trait evolution is incompletely understood because the fossil record of gigantic pliosaurids is scarce prior to...
The Toarcian (upper Lower Jurassic) strata of the world-renowned Posidonia Shale of Central Europe have yielded diverse assemblages of marine vertebrates. Some of them, such as those of the Holzmaden area in southwestern Germany, are among the best-preserved specimens of Lower Jurassic vertebrate taxa. Here, we provide a reassessment of ‘Plesiosaur...
Upland environments are severely underrepresented in the fossil record, which causes substantial gaps in our knowledge of their paleodiversity. Barremian–Aptian upland paleokarst fissure and cave deposits exposed at Balve-Beckum in northwestern Germany yield a large amount of vertebrate remains. Disarticulated and fragmentary bones and teeth repres...
Cryptoclidian plesiosaurs are a diverse and globally distributed clade of plesiosauroids that existed from the Middle Jurassic to the latest Cretaceous and comprised cryptoclidids, elasmosaurids, and leptocleidians. Their emergence is generally thought to be associated with the restructuring of the upper tier of marine ecosystems during the Early/M...
Described in 1858, Trematospondylus macrocephalus is one of the earliest established plesiosaur taxa. However, despite being historically significant, the taxon disappeared from the literature shortly after its initial description and has not been mentioned for over a century. Thus, it has never been properly assessed. The holotype comprises seven...
Lower Permian deposits of the Boskovice Basin in the Czech Republic have long been renowned for extraordinarily abundant specimens of discosauriscid seymouriamorphs, some of which showing exceptional preservation, including widespread soft tissues. The only other tetrapods from the strata are represented by rare temnospondyls. However, recent field...
The current knowledge of tetrapods from the Asselian (lowermost Permian) of the Boskovice Basin in the Czech Republic is almost exclusively based on body fossils which are limited to a few taxa of lacustrine origin. These specimens comprise extraordinarily abundant discosauriscids (Špinar, 1952; Klembara, 1995; Klembara, 2009) and some very rare te...
Ischyrodon meriani is an obscure pliosaurid taxon established upon an exceptionally large tooth crown of a probable Callovian (Middle Jurassic) age that originates from Wölflinswil, Canton of Aargau, Switzerland. Despite being known for almost two centuries, the specimen remains poorly researched. Historically, I. meriani has been associated, or ev...
Lower Permian strata of the Boskovice Basin in the Czech Republic have yielded hundreds of largely complete seymouriamorph individuals, some of which are exceptionally preserved and have noticeable soft tissues, such as external gills and eye structures. The vast majority of these finds are referable to Discosauriscus austriacus, and almost exclusi...
Changes in speciation and extinction rates are key to the dynamics of clade diversification, but attempts to infer them from phylogenies of extant species face challenges. Methods capable of synthesizing information from extant and fossil species have yielded novel insights into diversification rate variation through time, but little is known about...
Ornithischians form a large clade of globally distributed Mesozoic dinosaurs, and represent one of their three major radiations. Throughout their evolutionary history, exceeding 134 million years, ornithischians evolved considerable morphological disparity, expressed especially through the cranial and osteodermal features of their most distinguisha...
Borogovia gracilicrus is a small-bodied theropod dinosaur from the Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) Nemegt Formation of southern Mongolia. The taxon is based on a single fragmentary specimen preserving only the distal part of the hindlimbs. The morphology of Borogovia shows a peculiar combination of features, some of which are traditionally conside...
Pliosaurids were the dominant macropredators in aquatic environments at least since the Middle Jurassic until their extinction in the early Late Cretaceous. Until very recently, the Cretaceous record of Pliosauridae has been poor and difficult to interpret from the taxonomic and phylogenetic perspective. Despite that the knowledge of Cretaceous pli...
Metriorhynchid crocodylomorphs were an important component in shallow marine ecosystems during the Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous in the European archipelago. While metriorhynchids are well known from western European countries, their central and eastern European record is poor and usually limited to isolated or fragmentary specimens which oft...
Thalassomedon haningtoni is one of the most completely preserved elasmosaurid plesiosaurians described to date. Unlike most other elasmosaurid fossils, both the holotype and a second referred specimen — which were recovered from the middle Cenomanian Graneros Shale in the mid-western USA — are represented by intact skulls with articulated postcrani...
Marine reptiles from the Upper Jurassic of Central Europe are rare and often fragmentary, which hinders their precise taxonomic identification and their placement in a palaeobiogeographic context. Recent fieldwork in the Kimmeridgian of Krzyżanowice, Poland, a locality known from turtle remains originally discovered in the 1960s, has reportedly pro...
The cross sections of tusks of all elephantimorph proboscideans show well-developed intersecting lines that form a conspicuous net-like structure termed the Schreger pattern. This trait is usually used to discriminate the tusks of recent elephants from those of mammoths. In Neogene elephantimorphs, however, the pattern remains largely unstudied and...
Observations of temporal overlap of niche occupation among Late Cretaceous marine amniotes suggest that the rise and diversification of mosasauroid squamates might have been influenced by competition with or disappearance of some plesiosaur taxa. We discuss that hypothesis through comparisons of the rates of morphological evolution of mosasauroids...
Ornithopod dinosaurs were abundant inhabitants of European islands during the Late Cretaceous. The long history of dinosaur research in Europe has led to the establishment of new taxa for numerous ornithopod specimens that received considerable attention in the literature; however, many of these remain essentially unstudied. This explains why littl...
Dental morphology, microstructure and chemistry provide unique insights into various aspects of the evolutionary history and ecology of extinct clades. However, most studies have focused exclusively on the morphological aspects of teeth, while there are significantly fewer detailed accounts of tooth microstructure and mineralogy. Here we provide a...
The Turonian (93.9–89.8 Ma) was a key transitional interval of plesiosaur evolution, during which pliosaurid apex predators (dominant since the Middle Jurassic) rapidly declined, and polycotylids correspondingly radiated as middle trophic-level pursuit hunters. Paradoxically, however, the fossil record of Turonian plesiosaurs is globally sparse, es...
A number of methods have recently become available to infer rates of speciation and extinction from datasets containing or restricted to extinct taxa; however, their comparative performance remains largely unexplored. To investigate the congruence of the estimates of macroevolutionary rates produced by these approaches, we inferred tip-dated phylog...
Mosasaurus lemonnieri is a mosasaurine mosasaurid first unearthed from the lower Maastrichtian of the Mons Basin, southern Belgium. Even though numerous well-preserved specimens have been attributed to the taxon, the knowledge of its anatomy is surprisingly poor and merely limited to some general characteristics. Here I describe the morphology of t...
Sponges are an ecologically important component of modern Caribbean coral reefs. However, little is known about the structure of sponge communities prior to the large-scale degradation of Caribbean reef ecosystems. Here we explore changes in the sponge community over the past millennium by analyzing the composition of sponge spicules from a sedimen...
Megacephalosaurus eulerti is a large macropredatory plesiosaur representing one of the last members of the diverse pliosaurid clade Brachaucheninae. The taxon was established upon a nearly complete skull including the mandible and fragments of the postcranial skeleton originating from the lower middle Turonian (Upper Cretaceous) of Kansas, USA. Owi...
Pliosaurid plesiosaurians played important roles in marine food chains from the Middle Jurassic to the mid Cretaceous, frequently as apex predators. All hitherto described pliosaurid species of the Kimmeridgian to the Hauterivian possess trihedral and subtrihedral teeth with a smooth labial surface, while Aptian–Turonian pliosaurids have exclusivel...
Hulsanpes perlei is an enigmatic theropod dinosaur from the Baruungoyot Formation (?mid-to upper Campanian, Upper Cretaceous) of Mongolia. It was discovered in 1970, during the third Polish-Mongolian paleontological expedition to the Nemegt Basin. The taxon is known based on a partial braincase and an incomplete right hindlimb. However, the brainca...
Phylogenetic data matrix
Data matrix in .tnt format, with scores updated for Hulsanpes. Character list in Cau et al. (2017, supplementary data).
Pliosaurid marine reptiles played important roles in marine food chains from the Middle Jurassic to the middle Cretaceous, frequently as apex predators. The evolution of pliosaurids during the later parts of the Early Cretaceous has recently been illuminated by discoveries from Russia (Hauterivian) and Colombia (Barremian). However, knowledge of pl...
Apparent differences between the faunal compositions of Callovian (late Middle Jurassic) and Kimmeridgian–Tithonian (middle to late Late Jurassic) marine diapsids of Europe suggest that a faunal turnover occurred during the Oxfordian (early Late Jurassic). The differences in the structures of marine diapsids are usually discussed within the context...
Megacephalosaurus eulerti was a large brachauchenine pliosaurid that roamed the Western Interior Seaway during the middle Turonian (Late Cretaceous). The type specimen (FHSM VP-321) consists of a nearly complete skull including the dentaries, and associated incomplete postcranial material. We assessed the dental morphology of Megacephalosaurus and...
Neornithischians were a major clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that existed from the earliest Jurassic to the latest Maastrichtian. During their long evolutionary history, neornithischians diverged into several highly distinctive clades, including ceratopsians, pachycephalosaurs, and hadrosaurids. However, the origin and the early evolution of Neorni...
During their long evolutionary history, neornithischian dinosaurs diverged into several clades with distinctive adaptations. However, the early evolution within Neornithischia and the resolution of the phylogenetic relationships of taxa situated near the base of the clade remain problematic. This is especially true for those taxa traditionally plac...
Brachauchenine pliosaurids were a cosmopolitan clade of macropredatory plesiosaurs that are considered to represent the only pliosaurid lineage that survived the faunal turnover of marine amniotes during the Jurassic– Cretaceous transition. However, the European record of the Early to early Late Cretaceous brachauchenines is largely limited to isol...
Mosasauroid squamates represented the apex predators within the Late Cretaceous marine and occasionally also freshwater ecosystems. Proper understanding of the origin of their ecological adaptations or paleobiogeographic dispersals requires adequate knowledge of their phylogeny. The studies assessing the position of mosasauroids on the squamate evo...
Brachauchenine pliosaurids were marine macropredatory reptiles that might have been the only evolutionary lineage of pliosaurid plesiosaurians that crossed the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary. Yet progress in understanding their origins and phylogenetic relationships has been hindered by limited knowledge of Early Cretaceous brachauchenine pliosaurid...
Mosasaurus lemonnieri is a mosasaurine mosasaurid originally described from the lower Maastrichtian (obtusa Zone) of the Ciply area, Mons Basin, southern Belgium. Despite being represented by numerous specimens, the knowledge of certain aspects of its anatomy is still incomplete. For example, the dentition of M. lemonnieri has been compared to that...
Pliosauridae is a globally distributed clade of aquatic predatory amniotes whose fossil record spans from the Lower Jurassic to the Upper Cretaceous. However, the knowledge of pliosaurid interrelationships remains limited. In part, this is a consequence of a few key taxa awaiting detailed reassessment. Among them, the taxon Polyptychodon is of spec...
The Upper Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone of southern Germany has yielded numerous species of pterosaurs known from specimens that represent various ontogenetic stages. Many specimens of these species have been distributed across the world and, in some cases, forgotten about. Here we report on a juvenile pterosaur that was obtained from a private coll...
Pliosaurid plesiosaurs were significant components of Mesozoic marine ecosystems and dominant predators, especially during the Middle and Late Jurassic. The subfamily Brachaucheninae comprises the only macropredatory pliosaurids that persisted to the early Late Cretaceous. All other pliosaurids became extinct prior to the end of the Jurassic. Howev...
Mosasauroidea is a species-rich clade of mostly marine, small to gigantic squamates with an evolutionary history recorded exclusively in Upper Cretaceous strata. Although the most distinguishable mosasauroid lineages, such as tylosaurines, plioplatecarpines and derived mosasaurines, have already been adequately recognised decades ago, their interre...
All currently known theropod specimens from the Czech Republic have been attributed to the crown clade Aves. However, an archosaur tooth in the Institute of Geological Sciences (Faculty of Science, Masaryk University), labelled as Teleosaurus, belongs to a non-avian theropod. The tooth comes from the Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian) carbonate rocks of Šv...
Although notable for their massive body plan and a wide paleobiogeographical distribution during the Late Cretaceous, the phylogeny of advanced titanosaur sauropods is difficult to infer. The main reason for the problems is probably the incomplete nature of their fossil material. However, additional difficulties might also stem from inclusion of in...
Teropodí fosilní materiál z území České republiky byl až dosud omezen pouze na zástupce Aves (viz např. Mlíkovský, 1995; Mayr & Gregorová, in press). Nyní byl však v paleontologických sbírkách Ústavu geologických věd PřF MU identifikován archosauří zub, jehož morfologie odpovídá zubům karnivorních forem teropodních dinosaurů. Materiál pochází ze sv...
