A new desert-dwelling dinosaur (Theropoda, Noasaurinae) from the Cretaceous of south Brazil

Autor(es):Mostrar menos -

Langer, Max Cardoso ^[1] ; Martins, Neurides de Oliveira ^{[2, 3]} ; Manzig, Paulo Cesar ^[2] ; Ferreira, Gabriel de Souza ^[1] ; de Almeida Marsola, Ailio Cesar ^[1] ; Fortes, Edison ^[4] ; Lima, Rosana ^{[4, 5]} ; Frediani Santana, Lucas Cesar ^[4] ; Vidal, Luciano da Silva ^[6] ; da Silva Lorencato, Rosangela Honorio ^[3] ; Ezcurra, Martin Daniel ^[7]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Univ Sao Paulo, Lab Paleontol, Fac Filosofia Ciencias & Letras Ribeirao Preto, Av Bandeirantes 3900, BR-14040901 Ribeirao Preto, SP - Brazil

^[2] Museu Paleontol Cruzeiro Oeste, Rua Joao Ormino Rezende 686, BR-87400000 Cruzeiro Do Oeste, PR - Brazil

^[3] Ctr Estudos Paleontol Ambientais & Culturais, Rua Edmundo Mercer Jr 1308, BR-87400000 Cruzeiro Do Oeste, PR - Brazil

^[4] Univ Estadual Maringa, Programa Posgrad Geog PGE, Ave Colombo 5790, BR-87020900 Maringa, Parana - Brazil

^[5] Univ Estadual Maringa, GEMA, Ave Colombo 5790, BR-87020900 Maringa, Parana - Brazil

^[6] Univ Fed Rio de Janeiro, Lab Macrofosseis, Av Athos Silveira Ramos 274, BR-21941611 Rio De Janeiro, RJ - Brazil

^[7] Museo Argentino Ciencias Nat Bernardino Rivadavia, Secc Paleontol Vertebrados, CONICET, Ave Angel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR, Buenos Aires, DF - Argentina

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS; v. 9, JUN 26 2019.
• Citações Web of Science: 3

Resumo

Noasaurines form an enigmatic group of small-bodied predatory theropod dinosaurs known from the Late Cretaceous of Gondwana. They are relatively rare, with notable records in Argentina and Madagascar, and possible remains reported for Brazil, India, and continental Africa. In south-central Brazil, the deposits of the Bauru Basin have yielded a rich tetrapod fauna, which is concentrated in the Bauru Group. The mainly aeolian deposits of the Caiua Group, on the contrary, bear a scarce fossil record composed only of lizards, turtles, and pterosaurs. Here, we describe the first dinosaur of the Caiua Group, which also represents the best-preserved theropod of the entire Bauru Basin known to date. The recovered skeletal parts (vertebrae, girdles, limbs, and scarce cranial elements) show that the new taxon was just over 1 m long, with a unique anatomy among theropods. The shafts of its metatarsals II and IV are very lateromedially compressed, as are the blade-like ungual phalanges of the respective digits. This implies that the new taxon could have been functionally monodactyl, with a main central weight-bearing digit, flanked by neighbouring elements positioned very close to digit III or even held free of the ground. Such anatomical adaptation is formerly unrecorded among archosaurs, but has been previously inferred from footprints of the same stratigraphic unit that yielded the new dinosaur. A phylogenetic analysis nests the new taxon within the Noasaurinae clade, which is unresolved because of the multiple alternative positions that Noasaurus leali can acquire in the optimal trees. The exclusion of the latter form results in positioning the new dinosaur as the sister-taxon of the Argentinean Velocisaurus unicus. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 14/03825-3 - A origem e irradiação dos dinossauros no Gondwana (Neotriássico - Eojurássico)
• Beneficiário: Max Cardoso Langer
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Temático