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Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia

During the Early Cretaceous, dinosaur communities of the Australian-Antarctic rift system (Eumeralla and Wonthaggi formations) cropping out in Victoria were apparently dominated by a diverse small-bodied ‘basal ornithopod’ fauna. Further north, in Queensland (Winton and Mackunda formations), poorly-...

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Autores principales: Bell, Phil R., Herne, Matthew C., Brougham, Tom, Smith, Elizabeth T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6284429/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30533306
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6008
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author Bell, Phil R.
Herne, Matthew C.
Brougham, Tom
Smith, Elizabeth T.
author_facet Bell, Phil R.
Herne, Matthew C.
Brougham, Tom
Smith, Elizabeth T.
author_sort Bell, Phil R.
collection PubMed
description During the Early Cretaceous, dinosaur communities of the Australian-Antarctic rift system (Eumeralla and Wonthaggi formations) cropping out in Victoria were apparently dominated by a diverse small-bodied ‘basal ornithopod’ fauna. Further north, in Queensland (Winton and Mackunda formations), poorly-represented small-bodied ornithopods coexisted with large-bodied iguanodontians. Our understanding of the ornithopod diversity from the region between the Australian-Antarctic rift and Queensland, represented by Lightning Ridge in central-northern New South Wales (Griman Creek Formation), has been superficial. Here, we re-investigate the ornithopod diversity at Lightning Ridge based on new craniodental remains. Our findings indicate a diverse ornithopod fauna consisting of two-to-three small-bodied non-iguanodontian ornithopods (including Weewarrasaurus pobeni gen. et sp. nov.), at least one indeterminate iguanodontian, and a possible ankylopollexian. These results support those of previous studies that favour a general abundance of small-bodied basal ornithopods in Early to mid-Cretaceous high-latitude localities of southeastern Australia. Although these localities are not necessarily time-equivalent, increasing evidence indicates that Lightning Ridge formed a ‘meeting point’ between the basal ornithopod-dominated localities in Victoria and the sauropod-iguanodontian faunas in Queensland to the north.
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spelling pubmed-62844292018-12-07 Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia Bell, Phil R. Herne, Matthew C. Brougham, Tom Smith, Elizabeth T. PeerJ Paleontology During the Early Cretaceous, dinosaur communities of the Australian-Antarctic rift system (Eumeralla and Wonthaggi formations) cropping out in Victoria were apparently dominated by a diverse small-bodied ‘basal ornithopod’ fauna. Further north, in Queensland (Winton and Mackunda formations), poorly-represented small-bodied ornithopods coexisted with large-bodied iguanodontians. Our understanding of the ornithopod diversity from the region between the Australian-Antarctic rift and Queensland, represented by Lightning Ridge in central-northern New South Wales (Griman Creek Formation), has been superficial. Here, we re-investigate the ornithopod diversity at Lightning Ridge based on new craniodental remains. Our findings indicate a diverse ornithopod fauna consisting of two-to-three small-bodied non-iguanodontian ornithopods (including Weewarrasaurus pobeni gen. et sp. nov.), at least one indeterminate iguanodontian, and a possible ankylopollexian. These results support those of previous studies that favour a general abundance of small-bodied basal ornithopods in Early to mid-Cretaceous high-latitude localities of southeastern Australia. Although these localities are not necessarily time-equivalent, increasing evidence indicates that Lightning Ridge formed a ‘meeting point’ between the basal ornithopod-dominated localities in Victoria and the sauropod-iguanodontian faunas in Queensland to the north. PeerJ Inc. 2018-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6284429/ /pubmed/30533306 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6008 Text en © 2018 Bell 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 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Paleontology
Bell, Phil R.
Herne, Matthew C.
Brougham, Tom
Smith, Elizabeth T.
Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia
title Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia
title_full Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia
title_fullStr Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia
title_full_unstemmed Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia
title_short Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia
title_sort ornithopod diversity in the griman creek formation (cenomanian), new south wales, australia
topic Paleontology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6284429/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30533306
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6008
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