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Three species have been referred to Shantungosuchus to date. The type species S. chuhsienensis (Young, 1961) is represented by an articulated skeleton preserved as an impression of its ventral surface.S. hangjinensis was recently described by Wu et al. (1994) on the basis of an incomplete skull (with the mandible) and the part of the postcranial skeleton. The third species is S. brachycephalus, which will be restudied in the present paper’s brachycephalus was erected by Young for a specimen, consisting of partial skull and some postcranial elements (V4020). It was published in one of Young’s posthumous papers in 1982. Because the specimen was not fully prepaired when it was studied, Young’s original description is very simple and there ekist errors in his identification of bone structures. For example, the four associated cervical vertebrae were described as osteoderms; the teeth are point rather than blunt in tip; and the left ramus of the mandible was identified as the humerus. Further repairation of the specimen shows many unknown features, especially characters from the palate, mandible and vertebrae. Those are sighflcant in our understanding of the morphology of S. brachycephalus and also important in establishing interspecific relationships within the genus.
Three species have been referred to Shantungosuchus to date. The type species S. chuhsienensis (Young, 1961) is represented by an articulated skeleton preserved as an impression of its ventral surface. S hangjinensis was recently described by Wu et al. (1994) on the basis of an incomplete skull (with the mandible) and the part of the postcranial skeleton. The third species is S. brachycephalus, which will be restudied in the present paper’s brachycephalus was erected by Young for a specimen, consisting of partial skull and Some postcranial elements (V4020). It was published in one of Young’s posthumous papers in 1982. Because the specimen was not fully prepaired when it was studied, Young’s original description is very simple and there ekist errors in his identification of bone structures. For example , the four associated cervical vertebrae were described as osteoderms; the teeth are point rather than blunt in tip; and the left ramus of the mandible was identified as the humerus. Furth er repairation of the specimen shows many unknown features, especially characters from the palate, mandible and vertebrae. Those are sighflcant in our understanding of the morphology of S. brachycephalus and also important in establishing interspecific relationships within the genus.