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Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China
BACKGROUND: The Late Cretaceous titanosauriform sauropod Huabeisaurus allocotus Pang and Cheng is known from teeth and much of the postcranial skeleton. Its completeness makes it an important taxon for integrating and interpreting anatomical observations from more fragmentary Cretaceous East Asian s...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3732233/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23936326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069375 |
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author | D'Emic, Michael D. Mannion, Philip D. Upchurch, Paul Benson, Roger B. J. Pang, Qiqing Zhengwu, Cheng |
author_facet | D'Emic, Michael D. Mannion, Philip D. Upchurch, Paul Benson, Roger B. J. Pang, Qiqing Zhengwu, Cheng |
author_sort | D'Emic, Michael D. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The Late Cretaceous titanosauriform sauropod Huabeisaurus allocotus Pang and Cheng is known from teeth and much of the postcranial skeleton. Its completeness makes it an important taxon for integrating and interpreting anatomical observations from more fragmentary Cretaceous East Asian sauropods and for understanding titanosauriform evolution in general. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We present a detailed redescription of Huabeisaurus allocotus and a suite of anatomical comparisons with other titanosauriforms that demonstrate its validity via autapomorphies (e.g., division of some presacral vertebral laminae, reduced development of caudal ribs, the development of fossae relative to one another in caudal vertebral neural arches, high tibia-to-femur ratio). Huabeisaurus shares many features with other Cretaceous East Asian sauropods (e.g., pendant cervical ribs, anterior-middle caudal vertebrae with a nearly flat anterior centrum face and a concave posterior centrum face) that are absent in sauropods from other landmasses and strata, suggesting a close relationship among many of these forms within the clade Somphospondyli. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Restudy of Huabeisaurus provides further evidence for the existence of a clade of somphospondylans – Euhelopodidae – mainly found in the Cretaceous of East Asia. Euhelopodidae represents a fourth example of the evolution of narrow crowns within Sauropoda, along with diplodocoids, brachiosaurids, and advanced titanosaurs (lithostrotians). Despite being known from fewer species than Diplodocoidea, Brachiosauridae, or Lithostrotia, euhelopodids possessed a broader range of tooth shapes than any of these clades, suggesting that euhelopodids exemplified a comparably broad range of feeding strategies and perhaps diets. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3732233 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-37322332013-08-09 Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China D'Emic, Michael D. Mannion, Philip D. Upchurch, Paul Benson, Roger B. J. Pang, Qiqing Zhengwu, Cheng PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The Late Cretaceous titanosauriform sauropod Huabeisaurus allocotus Pang and Cheng is known from teeth and much of the postcranial skeleton. Its completeness makes it an important taxon for integrating and interpreting anatomical observations from more fragmentary Cretaceous East Asian sauropods and for understanding titanosauriform evolution in general. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We present a detailed redescription of Huabeisaurus allocotus and a suite of anatomical comparisons with other titanosauriforms that demonstrate its validity via autapomorphies (e.g., division of some presacral vertebral laminae, reduced development of caudal ribs, the development of fossae relative to one another in caudal vertebral neural arches, high tibia-to-femur ratio). Huabeisaurus shares many features with other Cretaceous East Asian sauropods (e.g., pendant cervical ribs, anterior-middle caudal vertebrae with a nearly flat anterior centrum face and a concave posterior centrum face) that are absent in sauropods from other landmasses and strata, suggesting a close relationship among many of these forms within the clade Somphospondyli. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Restudy of Huabeisaurus provides further evidence for the existence of a clade of somphospondylans – Euhelopodidae – mainly found in the Cretaceous of East Asia. Euhelopodidae represents a fourth example of the evolution of narrow crowns within Sauropoda, along with diplodocoids, brachiosaurids, and advanced titanosaurs (lithostrotians). Despite being known from fewer species than Diplodocoidea, Brachiosauridae, or Lithostrotia, euhelopodids possessed a broader range of tooth shapes than any of these clades, suggesting that euhelopodids exemplified a comparably broad range of feeding strategies and perhaps diets. Public Library of Science 2013-08-02 /pmc/articles/PMC3732233/ /pubmed/23936326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069375 Text en © 2013 D'Emic et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article D'Emic, Michael D. Mannion, Philip D. Upchurch, Paul Benson, Roger B. J. Pang, Qiqing Zhengwu, Cheng Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China |
title | Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China |
title_full | Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China |
title_fullStr | Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China |
title_full_unstemmed | Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China |
title_short | Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China |
title_sort | osteology of huabeisaurus allocotus (sauropoda: titanosauriformes) from the upper cretaceous of china |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3732233/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23936326 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0069375 |
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