Die Wirbeltier-Ichnofauna aus dem unteren Muschelkalk von Winterswijk

The Lower Muschelkalk of Winterswijk (eastern part of Holland) has yielded numerous reptile footprints of small to median size, on surfaces with mud cracks. The most frequent ichnospecies. Rhynchosauroides peabodyi (FABER 1958), has been described previously (FABER 1958, BAIRD 1964 and OOSTERINK 1976, 1980). But owing to a more important material of high quality, a careful study has allowed to give a better determination of the position of the trackmaker in the classification, probably within the proterosuchian archosaurs, by the shape of the subdigital scales and the morphology of the skeleton of the foot. An archosaurian, probably a pseudosuchian is the trackmaker of the single footprint Brachychirotherium cf. circaparvum (DEMATHIEU 1971). The cotylosaurs are represented by rather frequent small traces. Procolophonichnium winterswijkense n.sp.; Phenacopus faberi n.g., n.sp. could have made by a sauropterygian (Nothosaurian); Phenacopus agilis n.sp. is a narrow trackway made by a small reptile whose systematic position is uncertain. The lacertoid form Rhynchosauroides sp. known only by a single footprint can be attributed to a lepidosaurian reptile. Two poorly inpressed traces belong to undeterminated reptiles, one of them was very small. The ichnofaunule from Winterswijk shows a reduces zoocoenose of reptiles which were living in an ecologie niche of small size at the coast of the sea beyond the areas frequented by the other reptiles.