Only isolated teeth are known from this genus, and those are limited to North America. Cappetta (1987: 142) tentatively reassigned them to Rhinobatoidei (and maintains that position in his 2006 paper). The species was originally described from the Cretaceous of Texas ((Thurmond 1971). Reports of this taxon include the Campanian deposits of New Jersey (Lauginiger, 1986: 56), Georgia (Schwimmer, 1986:115) North Carolina (Robb, 1989: 89 as Rhombodus levis), Santonian-Campanian of Mississippi (Manning & Dockery, 1992), Santonian of Alabama (Meyer 1974) and the Maastrichtian of Maryland (Hartstein et al, 1999: 18). Welton & Farish (1993: 134) included them in the Aptian-Cenomanian of Texas. Case & Cappetta (1997) did not include this genus in the Maastrichtian of Texas.

Described as Hypolophus? mcnultyi (THURMOND 1972) it (the tooth-design) is the only member of the genus. Cappetta (1987: 142, figs 119i-o) described the teeth as being up to 5 mm wide, bilobate, with a smooth, weakly hexagonal, crown. Illustrations showed a single central foramen and a lateral foramen on the lingual face of each lobe, creating an apico-basal notch. Numerous smaller foramina were scattered high on the lateral face of each lobe below the crown. Welton & Farish (1993: 134) refer to these teeth as abundant in the Cenomanian of Texas and expanded upon Cappetta's remarks by noting that nutrient groove is deep and more than one foramen may be present. They also indicated that that numerous small foramina pierce upper marginal faces of the root.

The illustrated examples are from the Late Cretaceous of North Carolina. Each tooth conforms well to illustrations in the above noted sources. The smaller tooth design (fig. top) is similar to a Campanian tooth from New Jersey identified as P. mcnultyi by Case (pers. com. 1998).

Manning, in Manning and Dockery (1992, p. 11) proposed that Hypolophus? mcnultyi, be removed from Pseudohypolophus, and placed in Brachyrhizodus, as the primitive sister species of Brachyrhizodus wichitaensis. Earl Manning (2006: 223-26), pers. comm., 2007) considers both to be primitive myliobatids, noting that rare late Santonian teeth of B. mcnultyi have a narrow third root, and early B. wichitaensis often only have two; so, having multiple roots doesn't separate the two. He feels that a size gap still separates the species; B. wichitaensis is considerably larger than B. mcnultyi. The crown rim in B. mcnultyi is also more rounded, and the crown is higher in B. wichitaensis. He considers it likely that the gap between the two will disappear when a good sample of early Campanian specimens eventually turns up. He also notes that Meyer (1974, pp. 363 & 368) considered B. mcnultyi (then in the manuscript genus "Parahypolophus"), along with Hybodus, to be characteristic of shallow-water marine habitat of the middle-Late Cretaceous.

Selected References

Cappetta, H., 1987. Chondrichthyes II. Mesozoic and Cenozoic Elasmobranchii. In: Handbook of Paleoichthyologie, vol. 3b, Gustav Fischer Verleg, Stuttgart, 193 pp.
Cappetta, H., 2006.. Elasmobranchii post-Triadici (index generum et specierum). In: Riegraf, W. (Ed) Fossilium Catalogus I:Animalia 142. Leiden, Backhuys Publish, 472pp.
Cappetta, H. and Case, G., 1975b. Sélaciens nouveaux du Crétecé du Texas. Géobios, 8, (40: 303-307.
Case, G. and Cappetta, H.. 1997. A new selachian fauna from the late Maastrichtian of Texas. Münchener Geowissenschaften Abhandungen 34:131-189.
Hartstein, E., Decina, L. and Keil, R., 1999. A Late Cretaceous (Severn Formation) Vertebrate Assemblage from Bowie, Maryland. The Mosasaur, VI:17-23.
Lauginiger, E., 1986.An Upper Cretaceous vertebrate assemblage from Big Brook, New Jersey. The Mosasaur, III:53-62.
Manning, E., 2006. Late Campanian vertebrate fauna of the Frankstown site, Prentiss County, Mississippi; systematics, paleoecology, taphonomy, sequence stratigraphy. Unpub. PhD dissertation, Tulane Univ., New Orleans, xvii+419 p., 16 pls.
Manning, E, and Dockery III, D, 1992. A guide to the Frankstown vertebrate fossil locality (Upper Cretaceous), Prentiss County, Mississippi. Mississippi Dept. of Env. Qual., Office of Geology, Circular 4, 43 p., 12 pls.
Meyer, R., 1974. Late Cretaceous elasmobranchs from the Mississippi and East Texas embayments of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Unpubl. PhD dissertation, Southern Methodist Univ., Dallas, xiv+419 p.
Robb, A., 1989. The Upper Cretaceous (Campanian, Black Creek Formation) Fossil Fish Fauna of Phoebus Landing, Bladen County, North Carolina, The Mosasaur, Vol 4, pp 75-92.
Schwimmer, D., 1986. Late Cretaceous fossils from the Blufftown Formation (Campanian) in western Georgia. The Mosasaur, III:109-119.
Thurmond, J., 1972. Cartilaginous fishes of the Trinity Group and related rocks (Lower Cretaceous) of North Central Texas. Southeast. Geol., 13, (4), pp 207-227.
Welton, B. and Farish, R., 1993. The Collector's Guide to Fossil Sharks and Rays from the Cretaceous of Texas. Before Time, Texas. 204 pp.