The Reinaut Formation in the south of the continent called Guralta is one of, if not the most extensive fossil site from the late Bobossic. Dated to have been formed between 125 and 122 million Eryobian years ago, the Reinaut Formation offers a glimpse of what life was like in the Kikilian, the latest stage of the Bobossic right before the devastating mass extinction dubbed “The World Scarring” happened.
Back when it was formed, the Reinaut Formation was likely a subtropical or temperate open woodland subject to seasonal rains. The fossils discovered in the Reinaut Formation so far, have mostly been megafaunal animals which tended to fossilise better than smaller animals in the conditions that were present in Reinaut 122 million years ago.
Kampourischiids might have been the dominant carnivores of in Reinaut, but they were not alone. Their environment was shared with an Arachnopod that even to modern standards was gigantic: Palaeophialtes horridus. What niche exactly P. Horridus filled in Reinaut remains a bit unclear. A fairly complete skeleton shows it was a somewhat gracefully built animal with slender legs and a long, thick tail. Its skull was wide at the base, but quite narrow towards the tip and the large maxilla shows that it was capable of opening its jaws very wide. All of this has led some researchers to believe it was a fisher, but its long, recurved and serrated teeth suggest otherwise. Palaeophialtes might have been an opportunic scavenger and perhaps kleptoparasite, feeding on whatever it could get its jaws around including fish, carrion and prey stolen from other predators.
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