the top of the skull, the parietal was broad and flattened, bearing no trace of the midline crest found in Tanystropheus. The jugal only had two processes, missing the third backward-projecting process present in most other archosauromorphs, but shared with Pectodens, Claudiosaurus, and Trilophosaurus. Also missing were the retroarticular process of the rear lower jaw (another point of distinction from Tanystropheus), as well as additional teeth and a cavity between the pterygoid bones on the palate. Neck and trunk Like Tanystropheus, Dinocephalosaurus had an exceptionally long neck ( long) relative to its torso ( excluding the tail). Tanystropheus and Dinocephalosaurus accomplished their extremely elongated necks in different ways. The neck of Tanystropheus was composed of 13 elongated neck vertebrae, whereas the neck of Dinocephalosaurus was composed of at least 27 neck vertebrae that were not as elongated. Among the 27 vertebrae of Dinocephalosaurus, the longest was the nineteenth, which measured approximately long. By comparison, the longest vertebrae in a Chinese specimen of Tanystropheus were the ninth and tenth, which measured long. Additionally, the neck vertebrae of Dinocephalosaurus were not hollow, unlike those of Tanystropheus. Additional features of the neck vertebrae which distinguished Dinocephalosaurus from other protorosaurs included the low and keel-like neural spines with concave top edges, and the front and rear articular surfaces of the vertebrae both being concave (amphicoelous). In the first ten neck vertebrae, the bottom margin was also concave. The long, slender neck ribs bore frontal projections free of the vertebral bodies, which was a rare feature otherwise seen only in Pectodens, Czatkowiella, Sclerostropheus, and Tanytrachelos. These ribs were aligned along the neck and bridged multiple consecutive vertebral joints, from two or three consecutive joints in the front of the neck to five or six in the rear of the neck. There appear to have been no distinct processes on the vertebrae for articulation with the ribs. The trunk of Dinocephalosaurus had a very high count of least 26 vertebrae. In Dinocephalosaurus, there appear to have been no lumbar vertebrae, or vertebrae of the trunk lacking ribs. The ribs of the sacrum and tail also do not appear to have been fused to their corresponding vertebrae. Each of the gastralia in Dinocephalosaurus was composed of three elements instead of four as in Tanystropheus; they differed in that Dinocephalosaurus only had one element on the midline, while Tanystropheus had two elements that combined to form a midline