The remains were found in 2002 in the Triassic deposits of the Guanling geological formation in Guizhou province in China .
He lived about 228 million years ago in shallow seas, ate fish and cephalopods . He had sharp teeth about 2 cm in length. He was a poor swimmer and was an ambush predator. Thanks to the muddy water, it was difficult to see a potential victim. In addition, he attacked from a long distance, before attacking, bending his neck 1.7 meters long and having 25 vertebrae. Then he sharply straightened his neck, while at the same time pushing apart the special ribs growing on the cervical vertebrae, expanding his neck and damping the shock wave that could warn the victim.
There are suggestions that the dinocephalosaurus was viviparous [2] [3] .
As of February 2017, the dinofephalosaurus is considered a member of the order Protorosauria . Closely related to Tanystropheus [4] , it also shares a number of features with Macrocnemus specimens [4] .
The position of dinofephalosaurs on the phylogenetic tree of protorosaurs [5] :
| Protorosauria |
| Jesairosaurus |
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| Boreopricea |
| | Tanystropheidae |
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| Macrocnemus |
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| Langobardisaurus |
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| Tanystropheus |
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| Tanytrachelos |
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| Dinocephalosaurus |
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