83-Million-Year-Old “Crocodile Lizard” from France Reveals New Pan-Shinisaur Species!

In a remarkable announcement published June 2026 in Papers in Palaeontology, paleontologists have described a new 83-million-year-old fossil lizard from southern France that belongs to the pan-Shinisauria — the ancient lineage that gave rise to today’s rare Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus).

Named Gallishinisaurus provincialis, the species is known from a partial skull, vertebrae, and articulated limb bones recovered from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) freshwater deposits of the Var Basin in Provence. The fossils, found alongside turtle shells and crocodyliform teeth, indicate a semi-aquatic lifestyle in lush riverine wetlands that once covered the Mediterranean coast of Europe.

At approximately 40 cm long, Gallishinisaurus displays the classic pan-shinisaur toolkit: a stout skull with pointed teeth, robust limbs, and a laterally compressed tail with double rows of dorsal osteoderms — the same “armored crocodile” appearance seen in its modern Asian relative. CT scans of the braincase reveal sensory adaptations consistent with ambush predation on small fish and invertebrates along streambanks.

Lead author Dr. Andrea Villa (Naturalis Biodiversity Center) states: “This is the first definitive pan-shinisaur from the Late Cretaceous of Western Europe. It dramatically expands the geographic and temporal range of a group previously thought to be primarily Asian and North American.”

The find demonstrates that pan-shinisaurs were widespread across the Northern Hemisphere during the latest Cretaceous, thriving alongside dinosaurs in warm, humid forest-river ecosystems. Their European representatives vanished after the end-Cretaceous extinction, leaving the single surviving Chinese species as a living fossil today.

As further material from the Var Basin is prepared, Gallishinisaurus provincialis promises to illuminate how this enigmatic lizard lineage survived the great extinction in Asia while disappearing from Europe — a true relic of a lost wetland world.