Filling the ceratosaur gap: A new ceratosaurian theropod from the Early Cretaceous of Spain

Sánchez-Hernández, Bárbara; Benton, Michael J.

doi:10.4202/app.2011.0144

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…7), indicating an unstable position within Spinosauridae. Elsewhere, the recovery of Camarillasaurus as a spinosaurine (originally described as a ceratosaur 85 ), lends further support to recently published reinterpretations of this taxon's systematic position 61,76,86 . This interpretation may help explain the presence of spinosaurine-like teeth recovered from the same deposits 58 .…”

Section: Phylogenetic Analysessupporting

confidence: 69%

New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae

Barker

Hone

Naish

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

105

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Spinosaurids are among the most distinctive and yet poorly-known of large-bodied theropod dinosaurs, a situation exacerbated by their mostly fragmentary fossil record and competing views regarding their palaeobiology. Here, we report two new Early Cretaceous spinosaurid specimens from the Wessex Formation (Barremian) of the Isle of Wight. Large-scale phylogenetic analyses using parsimony and Bayesian techniques recover the pair in a new clade within Baryonychinae that also includes the hypodigm of the African spinosaurid Suchomimus. Both specimens represent distinct and novel taxa, herein named Ceratosuchops inferodios gen. et sp. nov. and Riparovenator milnerae gen. et sp. nov. A palaeogeographic reconstruction suggests a European origin for Spinosauridae, with at least two dispersal events into Africa. These new finds provide welcome information on poorly sampled areas of spinosaurid anatomy, suggest that sympatry was present and potentially common in baryonychines and spinosaurids as a whole, and contribute to updated palaeobiogeographic reconstructions for the clade.

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Section: Phylogenetic Analysessupporting

confidence: 69%

New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae

Barker

Hone

Naish

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…2A, st label) and share very similar shape and ornamentation. These features are also visible in the sternal plates MPG-KPC1 and 2, described by Sánchez-Hernández & Benton (2014: fig. 10) in Camarillasaurus cirugedae , a Cretaceous ceratosaurian from Spain.…”

Section: Description and Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…This would be the fourth time that sternal plates have been described in a ceratosaurian theropod, after Carnotaurus (Bonaparte, Novas & Coria, 1990), Limusaurus (Xu et al, 2009), and Camarillasaurus (Sánchez-Hernández & Benton, 2014).…”

Section: Description and Comparisonsmentioning

confidence: 94%

The oldest ceratosaurian (Dinosauria: Theropoda), from the Lower Jurassic of Italy, sheds light on the evolution of the three-fingered hand of birds

Sasso¹,

Maganuco²,

Cau³

2018

PeerJ

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The homology of the tridactyl hand of birds is a still debated subject, with both paleontological and developmental evidence used in support of alternative identity patterns in the avian fingers. With its simplified phalangeal morphology, the Late Jurassic ceratosaurian Limusaurus has been argued to support a II–III–IV digital identity in birds and a complex pattern of homeotic transformations in three-fingered (tetanuran) theropods. We report a new large-bodied theropod, Saltriovenator zanellai gen. et sp. nov., based on a partial skeleton from the marine Saltrio Formation (Sinemurian, lowermost Jurassic) of Lombardy (Northern Italy). Taphonomical analyses show bone bioerosion by marine invertebrates (first record for dinosaurian remains) and suggest a complex history for the carcass before being deposited on a well-oxygenated and well-illuminated sea bottom. Saltriovenator shows a mosaic of features seen in four-fingered theropods and in basal tetanurans. Phylogenetic analysis supports sister taxon relationships between the new Italian theropod and the younger Early Jurassic Berberosaurus from Morocco, in a lineage which is the basalmost of Ceratosauria. Compared to the atrophied hand of later members of Ceratosauria, Saltriovenator demonstrates that a fully functional hand, well-adapted for struggling and grasping, was primitively present in ceratosaurians. Ancestral state reconstruction along the avian stem supports 2-3-4-1-X and 2-3-4-0-X as the manual phalangeal formulae at the roots of Ceratosauria and Tetanurae, confirming the I–II–III pattern in the homology of the avian fingers. Accordingly, the peculiar hand of Limusaurus represents a derived condition restricted to late-diverging ceratosaurians and cannot help in elucidating the origin of the three-fingered condition of tetanurans. The evolution of the tridactyl hand of birds is explained by step-wise lateral simplification among non-tetanuran theropod dinosaurs, followed by a single primary axis shift from digit position 4 to 3 at the root of Tetanurae once the fourth finger was completely lost, which allowed independent losses of the vestigial fourth metacarpal among allosaurians, tyrannosauroids, and maniraptoromorphs. With an estimated body length of 7.5 m, Saltriovenator is the largest and most robust theropod from the Early Jurassic, pre-dating the occurrence in theropods of a body mass approaching 1,000 Kg by over 25 My. The radiation of larger and relatively stockier averostran theropods earlier than previously known may represent one of the factors that ignited the trend toward gigantism in Early Jurassic sauropods.

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“…As with the Late Jurassic, at least part of this signal represents the influence of a Lagerstätten effect (e.g. Las Hoyas, Spain) ( Buscalioni et al, 2008 ; Upchurch et al, 2011 ; Sánchez-Hernández & Benton, 2012 ), highlighting that single, well-sampled formations can have a profound historical effect on our understanding of regional diversity patterns, even when subsampling methods are applied. The European Aptian–Albian record is increasing slower through time compared to the Campanian–Maastrichtian.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How has our knowledge of dinosaur diversity through geologic time changed through research history?

Chiarenza

Baron

2018

PeerJ

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Assessments of dinosaur macroevolution at any given time can be biased by the historical publication record. Recent studies have analysed patterns in dinosaur diversity that are based on secular variations in the numbers of published taxa. Many of these have employed a range of approaches that account for changes in the shape of the taxonomic abundance curve, which are largely dependent on databases compiled from the primary published literature. However, how these ‘corrected’ diversity patterns are influenced by the history of publication remains largely unknown. Here, we investigate the influence of publication history between 1991 and 2015 on our understanding of dinosaur evolution using raw diversity estimates and shareholder quorum subsampling for the three major subgroups: Ornithischia, Sauropodomorpha, and Theropoda. We find that, while sampling generally improves through time, there remain periods and regions in dinosaur evolutionary history where diversity estimates are highly volatile (e.g. the latest Jurassic of Europe, the mid-Cretaceous of North America, and the Late Cretaceous of South America). Our results show that historical changes in database compilation can often substantially influence our interpretations of dinosaur diversity. ‘Global’ estimates of diversity based on the fossil record are often also based on incomplete, and distinct regional signals, each subject to their own sampling history. Changes in the record of taxon abundance distribution, either through discovery of new taxa or addition of existing taxa to improve sampling evenness, are important in improving the reliability of our interpretations of dinosaur diversity. Furthermore, the number of occurrences and newly identified dinosaurs is still rapidly increasing through time, suggesting that it is entirely possible for much of what we know about dinosaurs at the present to change within the next 20 years.

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Filling the ceratosaur gap: A new ceratosaurian theropod from the Early Cretaceous of Spain

Abstract: Ceratosaurian theropods evolved in two bursts, first in the Middle and Late Jurassic and then in the Late

Cited by 14 publications

References 56 publications

New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae

New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae

The oldest ceratosaurian (Dinosauria: Theropoda), from the Lower Jurassic of Italy, sheds light on the evolution of the three-fingered hand of birds

How has our knowledge of dinosaur diversity through geologic time changed through research history?

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