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A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China

The early evolutionary history of the armored dinosaurs (Thyreophora) is obscured by their patchily distributed fossil record and by conflicting views on the relationships of Early Jurassic taxa. Here, we describe an early diverging thyreophoran from the Lower Jurassic Fengjiahe Formation of Yunnan...

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Autores principales: Yao, Xi, Barrett, Paul M, Yang, Lei, Xu, Xing, Bi, Shundong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8929930/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35289749
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75248
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author Yao, Xi
Barrett, Paul M
Yang, Lei
Xu, Xing
Bi, Shundong
author_facet Yao, Xi
Barrett, Paul M
Yang, Lei
Xu, Xing
Bi, Shundong
author_sort Yao, Xi
collection PubMed
description The early evolutionary history of the armored dinosaurs (Thyreophora) is obscured by their patchily distributed fossil record and by conflicting views on the relationships of Early Jurassic taxa. Here, we describe an early diverging thyreophoran from the Lower Jurassic Fengjiahe Formation of Yunnan Province, China, on the basis of an associated partial skeleton that includes skull, axial, limb, and armor elements. It can be diagnosed as a new taxon based on numerous cranial and postcranial autapomorphies and is further distinguished from all other thyreophorans by a unique combination of character states. Although the robust postcranium is similar to that of more deeply nested ankylosaurs and stegosaurs, phylogenetic analysis recovers it as either the sister taxon of Emausaurus or of the clade Scelidosaurus+ Eurypoda. This new taxon, Yuxisaurus kopchicki, represents the first valid thyreophoran dinosaur to be described from the Early Jurassic of Asia and confirms the rapid geographic spread and diversification of the clade after its first appearance in the Hettangian. Its heavy build and distinctive armor also hint at previously unrealized morphological diversity early in the clade’s history.
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spelling pubmed-89299302022-03-18 A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China Yao, Xi Barrett, Paul M Yang, Lei Xu, Xing Bi, Shundong eLife Ecology The early evolutionary history of the armored dinosaurs (Thyreophora) is obscured by their patchily distributed fossil record and by conflicting views on the relationships of Early Jurassic taxa. Here, we describe an early diverging thyreophoran from the Lower Jurassic Fengjiahe Formation of Yunnan Province, China, on the basis of an associated partial skeleton that includes skull, axial, limb, and armor elements. It can be diagnosed as a new taxon based on numerous cranial and postcranial autapomorphies and is further distinguished from all other thyreophorans by a unique combination of character states. Although the robust postcranium is similar to that of more deeply nested ankylosaurs and stegosaurs, phylogenetic analysis recovers it as either the sister taxon of Emausaurus or of the clade Scelidosaurus+ Eurypoda. This new taxon, Yuxisaurus kopchicki, represents the first valid thyreophoran dinosaur to be described from the Early Jurassic of Asia and confirms the rapid geographic spread and diversification of the clade after its first appearance in the Hettangian. Its heavy build and distinctive armor also hint at previously unrealized morphological diversity early in the clade’s history. eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd 2022-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8929930/ /pubmed/35289749 http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75248 Text en © 2022, Yao et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Yao, Xi
Barrett, Paul M
Yang, Lei
Xu, Xing
Bi, Shundong
A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China
title A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China
title_full A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China
title_fullStr A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China
title_full_unstemmed A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China
title_short A new early branching armored dinosaur from the Lower Jurassic of southwestern China
title_sort new early branching armored dinosaur from the lower jurassic of southwestern china
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8929930/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35289749
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.75248
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