Mesosaurus (meaning "middle lizard") is an extinct genus of reptile from the Early Permian of southern Africa and South America. Along with it, the genera Brazilosaurus and Stereosternum, it is a member of the family Mesosauridae and the order Mesosauria. Mesosaurus was long thought to have been one of the first marine reptiles, although new data suggests that at least those of Uruguay inhabited a hypersaline water body, rather than a typical marine environment. In any case, it had many adaptations to a fully aquatic lifestyle. It is usually considered to have been anapsid, although Friedrich von Huene considered it to be a synapsid, and this hypothesis has been revived recently. Discovery and naming The holotype of M. tenuidens, MNHN 1865-77, is nicknamed the "Griqua Mesosaurus" and it was found in a Griqua hut in South Africa, likely in Kimberley, Northern Cape around 1830 and was being used as a pot lid. The circumstances of its discovery and how it was taken from its previous owners in South Africa are unknown, but what is known is that the specimen eventually surfaced in the collection of the French palaeontologist Paul Gervais during the 1860s and he designated it as the holotype of a new genus and species he named Mesosaurus tenuidens in 1865. Since then, Mesosaurus remains have also been identified from South America and were first identified in 1908 as belonging to a second species, M. brasiliensis, by J. H. MacGregor. Later studies have shown that M. brasiliensis was the same animal as M. tenuidens, which remains as the single valid species of Mesosaurus to this day. Two other species of mesosaurids have since been described, which are Stereosternum and Brazilosaurus, which are also considered to be synonyms of Mesosaurus tenuidens according to Piñeiro et al. (2021). Description Mesosaurus had a long skull that was larger than that of Stereosternum and had longer teeth. The teeth are angled outwards, especially those at the tips of the jaws. The bones of the postcranial skeleton are thick, having undergone pachyostosis. Mesosaurus is unusual among reptiles in that it possesses a cleithrum. A cleithrum is a type of dermal bone that overlies the scapula, and is usually found in more primitive bony fish and tetrapods. The head of the interclavicle of Mesosaurus is triangular, unlike those of other early reptiles, which are diamond-shaped. Palaeobiology Mesosaurus was one of the first reptiles known to