Three loose blocks, rich in dinosaur footprints, were found in a small pier at Mattinata (Gargano Promontory, Foggia, Italy), most probably quarried from the Upper Jurassic Sannicandro Formation. All of the footprints in the blocks are ascribed to medium-sized theropod trackmakers. Recent track discoveries from both the Early Cretaceous San Giovanni Rotondo Limestone and the Late Cretaceous Altamura Limestone, as well as this new discovery, reveal the consistency of terrestrial associations along the southern margin of the Tethys Ocean in the peri-Mediterranean area at the end of Jurassic through Cretaceous times. The presence of these dinosaur-track-rich levels within marine sediments of the Apulia Platform underlines the relevance of dinosaur footprints as a means of constraining paleogeographic reconstructions.
New dinosaur tracksites are described from the Bajocian-Bathonian Bemaraha Formation of western Madagascar. Two track-bearing surfaces can be followed over a distance of at least 4 km, suggesting the existence of a hitherto unrecognized megatracksite. The track assemblage is theropod dominated, but sauropod tracks also occur at one site. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the abundant theropod track material suggests that most, if not all, theropod footprints are attributable to a single trackmaker and are referred to Kayentapus isp. Although this ichnogenus, originally described from the Lower Jurassic of North America, has never been recorded from Gondwana nor from the Middle Jurassic, track morphology strongly suggests this attribution. Palaeogeographical, sedimentological and ichnological data suggest that the dinosaur tracks formed in an intertidal to supratidal setting where the coastline influenced the preferred walking direction of the animals.
About 350 dinosaur footprints, including the longest dinosaur trackway currently on record in Africa, are preserved in the Lower Jurassic Etjo Formation at the Otjihaenamaparero 92 Farm in north-central Namibia. This historically significant locality was among the first dinosaur tracksites ever to be reported from the African continent and is today a National Monument and tourist destination. Nevertheless, its ichnofauna was never described in any detail. Herein we discuss its significance for southern African palaeontology. Although originally described in the 1920ies as new ichnotaxa and later compared to other ichnotaxa described from Lesotho, most tracks of the Namibian Etjo Formation are referable to the classic North American ichnogenera Eubrontes, Anchisauripus and Grallator. A single median-sized theropod trackway is cautiously assigned to Kayentapus, but shows characters that differ from North American and European Kayentapus, linking it to other "Kayentapus-like" tracks from Lesotho and Madagascar. A small-sized functionally tridactyl morphotype with posteriorly directed hallux, common at Otjihaenamaparero, appears to represent a genuinely African form that may also occur in Lesotho. This ichnofauna strengthens the assignment of an Early Jurassic age to the Etjo Formation and opens a window on the diversity of dinosaur communities in arid environments of Early Jurassic southern Gondwana.
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