A CYAMODONTID PLACODONT (REPTILIA: SAUROPTERYGIA) FROM THE TRIASSIC OF SLOVENIA

Abstract: An isolated dentary bone from the Triassic ofTosˇko Cˇelo, near Ljubljana (Slovenia) is referred to the genusCyamodus. It is the first record of a placodont from Slovenia.The specimen is late Ladinian or early Carnian in age, and isthus among the latest known representatives of the genusCyamodus. The late survival of Cyamodus in the southernAlpine domain, while it disappeared from the Germanic Basinin the early Ladinian, is probably linked to the persistence offully marine conditions in the southern part of its range, afterenvironments had become less favourable to placodonts in theGermanic Basin with the advent of the Keuper facies. Key words: Placodontia, Cyamodus, Triassic, Slovenia, Pal-aeobiogeography.O nly a few occurrences of Triassic reptiles have beenreported from Slovenia. They include the posterior partof the body of the small sauropterygian Neusticosaurus,from Carnian beds on the northern slope of Mt. Storzˇicˇ(Rieppel 1997), a large ichthyosaur vertebra from the Car-nian of the Mezˇica area of the Northern KaravankeMountains (Jurkovsˇek 1978; Jurkovsˇek et al. 2002) andfootprints apparently left by a bipedal archosaur at God-ovicˇ (Pavsˇicˇ 1995). In the present paper, we describe adentary bone from the Ljubljana region which clearlybelongs to a placodont and is the first record of thatgroup of reptiles from Slovenia.