Adamisaurus magnidentatus Sulimski, 1972 is an extinct saurian reptile. It lived in the Upper Cretaceous (Santonian-Maastrichtian, about 84.9 - 70.6 million years ago) and its fossil remains have been found in Asia (Mongolia and China).
Description[]
This animal was supposed to resemble a present lizard or perhaps a tegu (Tupinambis teguixin), and possessed a large short skull, about 25 centimeters long. The whole animal was to be 2 meters long. The teeth were triangular in shape and large in size, particularly towards the back of the jaws. The shape of the teeth resembled that of some current representatives of the Scincidae family, but the structure of the jaw recalls that of the agamids. The dentition suggests that this animal was herbivorous.
Taxonomy[]
A. magnidentatus was first described in 1972, on the basis of fossil remains found in the Djadochta formation in Mongolia, dating back to the Campaniano. Other fossils of this animal have been found in China. Adamisaurus was originally ascribed with some doubts to the family of the agamids, but is currently considered a primitive member of the clade Boreoteioidea (Mo et al., 2009), a group of saurians with particular teeth, typical of the Cretaceous of Asia and North America. It is also possible that this animal was related to Slavoia darevskii, another lizard of the Upper Asian Cretaceous.