Brachyrhizodus, ROMER, 1942

Adnet, Sylvain, Cappetta, Henri, Guinot, Guillaume & Sciara, Giuseppe Notarbartolo Di, 2012, Evolutionary history of the devilrays (Chondrichthyes: Myliobatiformes) from fossil and morphological inference, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166 (1), pp. 132-159 : 141

GENUS † BRACHYRHIZODUS ROMER, 1942

Included species: † Brachyrhizodus wichitaensis Romer, 1942 .

Occurrences: Erroneously reported from the Carbo- Permian as a petalodontiform ( Romer, 1942), this genus occurs only in the Campanian–Maastrichtian of North America ( Cappetta & Case, 1975; Welton & Farish, 1993).

Remarks: Claeson et al. (2010) recently suggested that the Cretaceous † B. wichitaensis Romer, 1942 , is a stem-mobuline and not a stem-myliobatid as previously reported by Cappetta (1987). According to these authors, a unique character state supports this reattribution: teeth of † Brachyrhizodus lack any curvature in basal or occlusal view, as observed in living devilrays ( Mobula and Manta ) and contrary to the genus Rhinoptera . However, observations made by us from the available figurations ( Cappetta & Case, 1975; Welton & Farish, 1993) and on dozens of specimens of † Brachyrhizodus allow us to refute the hypothesis of Claeson et al. (2010).