Mesozoic dinosaurs from Brazil and their biogeographic implications

Abstract

The record of dinosaur body-fossils in the Brazilian Mesozoic is restricted to the Triassic of Rio Grande do Sul and Cretaceous of various parts of the country. This includes 21 named species, two of which were regarded as nomina dubia, and 19 consensually assigned to Dinosauria. Additional eight supraspecific taxa have been identified based on fragmentary specimens and numerous dinosaur footprints known in Brazil. In fact, most Brazilian specimens related to dinosaurs are composed of isolated teeth and vertebrae. Despite the increase of fieldwork during the last decade, there are still no dinosaur body-fossils of Jurassic age and the evidence of ornithischians in Brazil is very limited. Dinosaur faunas from this country are generally correlated with those from other parts of Gondwana throughout the Mesozoic. During the Late Triassic, there is a close correspondence to Argentina and other south-Pangaea areas. Mid-Cretaceous faunas of northeastern Brazil resemble those of coeval deposits of North Africa and Argentina. Southern hemisphere spinosaurids are restricted to Africa and Brazil, whereas abelisaurids are still unknown in the Early Cretaceous of the latter. Late Cretaceous dinosaur assemblages of south-central Brazil are endemic only to genus or, more conspicuously, to species level, sharing closely related taxa with Argentina, Madagascar, Indo-Pakistan and, to a lesser degree, continental Africa.

Dientes de Abelisauridae y Carcharodontosauridae cf. (Theropoda, Dinosauria) del Campaniano-Maastrichtiano Formación Presidente Prudente (Suroeste Provincia de São Paulo, Brasil)

“…and carcharodontosaurid morphotypes (Candeiro et al, 2006(Candeiro et al, , 2010Bittencourt & Langer, 2011). These records show the continuous and sustained composition of Gondwanan dinosaur fauna in the Bauru Group during the Late Cretaceous, reinforced with the Alfredo Marcondes and Flórida Paulista materials described in this paper.…”

“…Hence, instead of considering all isolated teeth from this beds as Gondwanan theropods the recovery of P. nevesi and Abelisauridae indet. premaxilla (Bertini, 1996;Kellner & Campos, 2002) and our current finding show that in the Late Cretaceous sites where dinosaur remains are poorly known, isolated theropod teeth deserve more attention (Candeiro et al, 2006;Bittencourt and Langer, 2011).…”

“…(Candeiro et al, 2006 andBittencourt &Langer, 2011 andreferences herein). Other localities of the same group have yielded a variety of theropod teeth, showing an unexpected, widespread Gondwanan theropod distribution and diversity (Candeiro et al, 2004(Candeiro et al, , 2006.…”

The last dinosaurs of Brazil: The Bauru Group and its implications for the end-Cretaceous mass extinction

“…This is not an exhaustive survey, but a chronicle of the most salient fossils that give insight into how the major dinosaur groups were evolving during the end-Cretaceous. For more exhaustive reviews of the Brazilian dinosaur record as a whole, please consult Kellner and Campos (2002) and Bittencourt and Langer (2011).…”

New record of abelisauroid theropods from the Bauru Group (Upper Cretaceous), São Paulo State, Brazil

“…However, most recently, new bone remains belonging to carcharodontosaurian theropods have been described (Azevedo et al, 2013). Theropod remains were found in several formations of the Bauru Group (Bittencourt & Langer, 2011). Remains of abelisaurid theropods are restricted to the Bauru Basin in southeastern Brazil.…”