Time to revive Brachysaurana for Prognathodon overtoni?

[VD231991]

In the cladistic analysis of their newly described mosasaurid Thalassotitan atrox, Longrich et al. (2022) reaffirm the paraphyly of the genus Prognathodon highlighted by previous cladistic studies, with some Prognathodon species (P. currii, P. giganteus, P. overtoni, and P. saturator) found to more closely related to Thalassotitan than to P. solvayi (the Prognathodon type species). Since P. overtoni is not recovered in a clade with Prognathodon solvayi to the exclusion of non-Prognathodon mosasaurines, as recommended by Longrich et al., the genus name Brachysaurana Strand, 1926 (a replacement name for the preoccupied name Brachysaurus Williston, 1897) may need to be resurrected for overtoni, since that species is the type species of Brachysaurana. (An unpublished 2016 dissertation by Hallie Street erects a new genus for the nominal species Prognathodon waiparensis, but that's another story).

Longrich, N.R., Jalil, N.-E., Khaldoune, F., Yazami, O.K., Pereda-Suberbiola, X., and Bardet, N., 2022. Thalassotitan atrox, a giant predatory mosasaurid (Squamata) from the Upper Maastrichtian Phosphates of Morocco. Cretaceous Research: 105315. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105315.

Street, H.P., 2016. A re-assessment of the genus Mosasaurus (Squamata: Mosasauridae). PhD thesis, University of Alberta.

[Halichoeres]

I dunno, I think Thalassotitan is going to be sunk into Prognathodon.

[VD231991]

I dunno, I think Thalassotitan is going to be sunk into Prognathodon.

Thalassotitan is younger than Brachysaurana overtoni, and given that some Prognathodon species from the Maastrichtian are found as sister taxa of Thalassotitan rather than the Prognathodon type species, it's unclear whether P. currii and P. saturator should be assigned to Thalassotitan.