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

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 For...

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Autores principales: Barker, Chris T., Hone, David W. E., Naish, Darren, Cau, Andrea, Lockwood, Jeremy A. F., Foster, Brian, Clarkin, Claire E., Schneider, Philipp, Gostling, Neil J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481559/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34588472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97870-8
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author Barker, Chris T.
Hone, David W. E.
Naish, Darren
Cau, Andrea
Lockwood, Jeremy A. F.
Foster, Brian
Clarkin, Claire E.
Schneider, Philipp
Gostling, Neil J.
author_facet Barker, Chris T.
Hone, David W. E.
Naish, Darren
Cau, Andrea
Lockwood, Jeremy A. F.
Foster, Brian
Clarkin, Claire E.
Schneider, Philipp
Gostling, Neil J.
author_sort Barker, Chris T.
collection PubMed
description 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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spelling pubmed-84815592021-10-01 New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae Barker, Chris T. Hone, David W. E. Naish, Darren Cau, Andrea Lockwood, Jeremy A. F. Foster, Brian Clarkin, Claire E. Schneider, Philipp Gostling, Neil J. Sci Rep Article 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. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-09-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8481559/ /pubmed/34588472 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97870-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Barker, Chris T.
Hone, David W. E.
Naish, Darren
Cau, Andrea
Lockwood, Jeremy A. F.
Foster, Brian
Clarkin, Claire E.
Schneider, Philipp
Gostling, Neil J.
New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae
title New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae
title_full New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae
title_fullStr New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae
title_full_unstemmed New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae
title_short New spinosaurids from the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, UK) and the European origins of Spinosauridae
title_sort new spinosaurids from the wessex formation (early cretaceous, uk) and the european origins of spinosauridae
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8481559/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34588472
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97870-8
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