Osteology and bone microstructure of new, small theropod dinosaur material from the early Late Cretaceous of Morocco

被引:22
作者
Evans, David C. [1 ,3 ]
Barrett, Paul M. [2 ]
Brink, Kirstin S. [3 ]
Carrano, Matthew T. [4 ]
机构
[1] Royal Ontario Museum, Dept Nat Hist, Toronto, ON M5S 2C6, Canada
[2] Nat Hist Museum, Dept Earth Sci, London SW7 5BD, England
[3] Univ Toronto, Dept Ecol & Evolutionary Biol, Toronto, ON M5S 3B2, Canada
[4] Smithsonian Inst, Natl Museum Nat Hist, Dept Paleobiol, Washington, DC 20560 USA
基金
加拿大自然科学与工程研究理事会;
关键词
Theropoda; Africa; Cretaceous; Ceratosauria; Osteohistology; DETERMINATE GROWTH; PHYLOGENY;
D O I
10.1016/j.gr.2014.03.016
中图分类号
P [天文学、地球科学];
学科分类号
07 ;
摘要
The 'Kern Kern beds' of Morocco have yielded abundant material of large-bodied theropod dinosaurs, but remains of small theropod taxa are rare. Here, we describe two femora that provide additional information on the diversity of small-bodied theropods in the Gondwanan mid-Cretaceous. An almost complete femur (ROM 64666) represents a noasaurid theropod based on the presence of an elongate anteromedial flange that arises from the distal shaft and terminates proximal to the distal end of the bone; osteohistological analysis indicates that it was from a juvenile individual. It is possible that this femur represents a juvenile Deltadromeus, which is recovered as a putative noasaurid in some phylogenetic analyses. Nevertheless, as the affinities of Deltadromeus are debated, this femur currently represents the first definitive record of a noasaurid from northern Africa and one of the few records of this clade from the early Late Cretaceous. Moreover, if this specimen is not a juvenile Deltadromeus then it probably represents a new addition to the Kern Kem theropod assemblage. A second partial femur (ROM 65779) can be identified only as an indeterminate averostran theropod. It is similar in size to ROM 64666, but the presence of an external fundamental system (EFS) indicates that it pertained to a small-sized adult individual. These observations indicate that the two femora described herein are from different theropod taxa, thereby demonstrating that at least one additional small-bodied theropod taxon was present in the Kern Kern fauna, adding to the already high theropod species-richness of this unit. Crown Copyright (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of International Association for Gondwana Research. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:1034 / 1041
页数:8
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