One of the really nice little surprises hiding in the basement of the Stuttgart museum was this mount of a skeleton of the rhynchosaur Scaphonyx.
We have met a life reconstruction before being devoured by Herrerasaurus at the Beijing Natural History Museum, but here is a skeleton of the beast. OK, so it’s a composite of cast copies and sculpted elements, but it does give you a pretty good idea of the rhynchosaur skeleton, most notably of the course the huge and somewhat triangular skull. The mount was stuck on the top of a large cabinet hence the odd angles of the photos. For more on rhynchosaurs check out the write up of Fodonyx here on the Musings, and Darren Naish’s series of rhynchosaur articles on Tetrapod Zoology.


Did rhynchosaurs walk with a full sprawl? This skeleton looks like the hindlimbs are doing the dicynodont thing–moving into the parasagittal plain while the forelimbs remain at a high sprawl.
Since being linked to your Fodonyx article, I’ve been reading up on rhynchosaurs. They’re pretty awesome–I love their bizarre dentition. The premaxillary “tusks” remind me of naked mole-rats.
As far as I am aware they are considered full sprawlers, I think it’s just an inexact mount more than anyhting else, though the femur is still at a fairly deflected angle.
‘though not trying to pose as Mr. Wisenheimer:
It is actally a cast of one of von Huene’s skeletons of Stenaulorhynchus stockleyi from the Manda Formation of Tanzania, which he described in 1938 (the originals reside at Tübingen University), not a Scaphonyx (or, as modern taxonomy has it, a “Brazilian Hyperodapedon”).
Otherwise: enjoyable posts on those rhynchosaurs, I always considered them gorgeous beasties
Michael, thank very much for the information. I should note however in my defence that the mount was labelled as belonging to Scaphonyx! Great to know that it was taken from one of von Huene’s specimens however. Glad you like the posts.