The holotype is QM F9181, an anterior section of a cranium with articulated dentary rami, and it was discovered in the Crater, southwest of Rolleston, Queensland.[3] The referred skull QM F9182 is also known.[4]Kudnu mackinlayi was named and described by Alan Bartholomai in 1979.[2]
Classification
Kudnu was initially classified within Paliguanidae by Bartholomai (1979). Benton (1985) classified Kudnu within Lepidosauromorpha,[5] while Evans (2003) classified Kudnu within Prolacertiformes,[6] and Evans & Jones (2010) later assigned Kudnu to the Procolophonidae.[7] More recent authors, such as Poropat et al. (2023), consider Kudnu to be a basal member of Neodiapsida.[4]
Paleoecology
The world Kudnu inhabited was still recovering from the recent Permian–Triassic extinction event, and as a result global biodiversity had remained low throughout much of the Early Triassic.[8] The world at this time was generally a hot and arid environment, reaching a temperature of 50 °C or even 60 °C at times.[9]
^Thulborn, R. A. (1979). "A proterosuchian thecodont from the Rewan Formation of Queensland". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 19: 331–355.
^Hamley, Tim; Cisneros, Juan; Damiani, Ross (2020). "A procolophonid reptile from the Lower Triassic of Australia". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 192 (2): 554–609. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa056.