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Austronaga post-crania described after further preparation

Thursday, July 30, 2026 21:33

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Wang et al 2026 followed Wang et al 2023
in their description of Middle Triassic Austronaga minuta (Figs 1–3). In the large reptile tree (LRT, 2340 taxa) based on the 2023 paper this marine lepidosaur with flippers nests with the Early Cretaceous non-squamate lepidosaur with fingers and toes, Huehueceutzpalli (Fig 4), a taxon not mentioned by the authors.

Taxon exclusion remains the number one problem in paleontology and taxonomy.
Fix that problem by building your own LRT.

Figure 1. Austronaga in situ and slightly reconstructed compared to scale with the PIMUZ 2477 specimen of Macrocnemus. Here is the value of a DGS reconstruction compared to the authors’ line drawing. Also compare Austronaga to Huehuecuetzpalli in figure 4. They have about the same skull.

Wang et al 2023, 2026 mention Macrocnemus several times,
but only generically, evidently not aware of the variety of specimens attributed to this genus tested by the LRT (subset Fig 2).

Use all the specimens in analysis if they are morphologically different.

FIgure 2. Subset of the LRT focusing on the hypothetical clade Tritosauria = Tanystropheidae + Drepanosauromorpha. Here Austronaga nests with Huehuecuetzpalli and the PIMUZ 2477 specimen attributed to Macrocnemus. Both specimens were ignored or omitted by Wang et al 2023, 2026.

Austronaga
(Fig 3) is one of the most wonderful fossils to come out of the Middle Triassic. What appear to be two humeri are indeed two humeri. The forelimbs are preserved as if clapping.

Figure 3. Austronaga specimen IVPP V18579.

Special thanks to readers
Stu and Sean for independently bringing this PDF to my attention.

The following letter was emailed to the authors yesterday.
Dear Drs Li, Wang and Spiekman:

Thank you for publishing on your wonderfully preserved Austronaga specimen recently.

A few notes to consider for your next similar paper:

Vancleavea is not an archosauriform. It is a thalattosaur close to Helveticosaurus in an online cladogram that includes 2340 taxa in order to minimize problems with taxon exclusion. The cladogram is here: https://reptileevolution.com/reptile-tree.htm.

Images here:
https://reptileevolution.com/helveticosaurus.htm
https://reptileevolution.com/vancleavea.htm

The matrices for the 2340 taxon study are here: https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/The_ReptileEvolution_com_Project/21823455.

The Archosauromorpha and Lepidosauromorpha (standard definitions) diverged following the last common ancestor (LCA) of all Amniota, now a junior synonym for Reptilia. That LCA was Silvanerpeton from the Visean. Mammals are members of the Archosauromorpha. Turtles are members of the Lepidosauromorpha.

Lepidosauromorpha includes all members of Spiekman’s ’Tanysauria’ (Tanystropheus, Macrocnemus, etc) They are all derived from the late-surviving non-squamate lepidosaur, Huehuecuetzpalli. See image attached.

Jesairosaurus, a sister to Huehuecuetzpalli, is basal to the drepanosaur clade.

Tiny tanystropheids, like Langobardisaurus, Cosesaurus, Oculudentavis, Mirasaura, Sharovipteryx and Longisquama are offshoots from the lineage that evolved into pterosaurs.

Here’s a citation missing from your paper that proposed the above hypothesis of interrelationships:

Peters D 2007
The origin and radiation of the Pterosauria.
Flugsaurier. The Wellnhofer Pterosaur Meeting, Munich 27
The interrelationships of taxa within and preceding the Pterosauria are revised here. Previous attempts at reconstructing cladistic relationships within the Pterosauria mistakenly used various archosauriforms as outgroups, used too few taxa, used too few characters and employed supra-generic terminal taxa that were not monophyletic. A number of previously considered synapomorphies now test as homoplasies. Many tiny pterosaurs (skull height

Please substitute ‘Lepidosauria’ for ’Squamata’ in the above paragraph. My understanding has evolved since then.

The metapodial pedal digit 5 is common to Tanystropheus and the small tanystropheids (including Triassic pterosaurs) but is not commonly found in Macrocnemus and its allies, like Austronaga.

The similarities between lepidosauromorph tanystropheids and archosauromorph protorosaurs are many and convincing. By adding pertinent taxa found here: https://reptileevolution.com/reptile-tree.htm the two clades separate.

Omitting pertinent taxa is the number one problem hobbling paleontology today. The 2340 taxon cladogram was created in order to minimize taxon exclusion and to separate convergent clades.

In my 2000 Rivista Italiana paper nesting pterosaurs with tiny tanystropheids I made the same freshman mistake of aligning them with protorosaurs. We all learn over time. Testing resolved the issue. Testing should continue.

Again, thank you for publishing on Austronaga. A wonderful specimen.

If you any of you were to build your own wide gamut cladogram, that would be the first test of the online 2340 taxon cladogram, currently a hypothesis of interrelationships in need of testing.
See image of Huehuecuetzpalli attached.

Figure 4. Huehuecuetzpalli skeleton alongside juvenile in situ.

PS
Since we have know of Rotodactylus tracks in the Early Triassic that match the pes of Middle Triassic Cosesaurus, a tiny derived tanystropheid, AND Middle Triassic Austronagus is so different from the more plesiomorphic Huehuecuetzpalli, that puts the split between Austronagus and Cosesaurus and Huehuecuetzpalli deep into the Permian, a period in which we have so few terrestrial fossils that are not in the synapsid lineage.

Worth thinking about. That’s a ghost lineage.
The LRT is a powerful tool. but it needs testing by independent workers.

References
Wang W, Lei H and Li C 2023. “A small-sized dinocephalosaurid archosauromorph from the Middle Triassic of Yunnan, southwestern China”. Vertebrata PalAsiatica. 62 (1). doi:10.19615/j.cnki.2096-9899.231013
Wang et al (8 co-authors) 2026. Highly aquatic marine stem archosaur with soft tissue preservation. Science Advances Research Article 12, eaeb7528.

wiki/Austronaga

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/07/31/austronaga-post-crania-described-after-further-preparation/

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