scholarly journals First spinosaurid dinosaur from Australia and the cosmopolitanism of Cretaceous dinosaur faunas

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 933-936 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Barrett ◽  
Roger B. J. Benson ◽  
Thomas H. Rich ◽  
Patricia Vickers-Rich
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Cervical Vertebra ◽  
Global Distribution ◽  
Geographical Range ◽  
Theropod Dinosaur

A cervical vertebra from the Early Cretaceous of Victoria represents the first Australian spinosaurid theropod dinosaur. This discovery significantly extends the geographical range of spinosaurids, suggesting that the clade obtained a near-global distribution before the onset of Pangaean fragmentation. The combined presence of spinosaurid, neovenatorid, tyrannosauroid and dromaeosaurid theropods in the Australian Cretaceous undermines previous suggestions that the dinosaur fauna of this region was either largely endemic or predominantly ‘Gondwanan’ in composition. Many lineages are well-represented in both Laurasia and Gondwana, and these observations suggest that Early–‘middle’ Cretaceous theropod clades possessed more cosmopolitan distributions than assumed previously, and that caution is necessary when attempting to establish palaeobiogeographic patterns on the basis of a patchily distributed fossil record.

First elaphrosaurine theropod dinosaur (Ceratosauria: Noasauridae) from Australia — A cervical vertebra from the Early Cretaceous of Victoria

2020 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 284-295
Author(s):  
Stephen F. Poropat ◽  
Adele H. Pentland ◽  
Ruairidh J. Duncan ◽  
Joseph J. Bevitt ◽  
Patricia Vickers-Rich ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Cervical Vertebra ◽  
Theropod Dinosaur

scholarly journals Isolated teeth of Anhangueria  (Pterosauria: Pterodactyloidea) from the Lower Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Brougham ◽  
Elizabeth T. Smith ◽  
Phil R. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Lower Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Global Distribution ◽  
Formal Description ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Life Habits

The fossil record of Australian pterosaurs is sparse, consisting of only a small number of isolated and fragmentary remains from the Cretaceous of Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria. Here, we describe two isolated pterosaur teeth from the Lower Cretaceous (middle Albian) Griman Creek Formation at Lightning Ridge (New South Wales) and identify them as indeterminate members of the pterodactyloid clade Anhangueria. This represents the first formal description of pterosaur material from New South Wales. The presence of one or more anhanguerian pterosaurs at Lightning Ridge correlates with the presence of ‘ornithocheirid’ andAnhanguera-like pterosaurs from the contemporaneous Toolebuc Formation of central Queensland and the global distribution attained by ornithocheiroids during the Early Cretaceous. The morphology of the teeth and their presence in the estuarine- and lacustrine-influenced Griman Creek Formation is likely indicative of similar life habits of the tooth bearer to other members of Anhangueria.

scholarly journals Convergent evolution of ramified antennae in insect lineages from the Early Cretaceous of Northeastern China

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1839) ◽  
pp. 20161448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taiping Gao ◽  
Chungkun Shih ◽  
Conrad C. Labandeira ◽  
Jorge A. Santiago-Blay ◽  
Yunzhi Yao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Motion Detection ◽  
Lower Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Convergent Evolution ◽  
Chemical Cues ◽  
Northeastern China ◽  
Environmental Cues ◽  
Key Innovation ◽  
Temperature Levels

Antennae are important, insect sensory organs that are used principally for communication with other insects and the detection of environmental cues. Some insects independently evolved ramified (branched) antennae, which house several types of sensilla for motion detection, sensing olfactory and chemical cues, and determining humidity and temperature levels. Though ramified antennae are common in living insects, occasionally they are present in the Mesozoic fossil record. Here, we present the first caddisflies with ramified antennae, the earliest known fossil sawfly, and a scorpionfly also with ramified antennae from the mid-Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Northeastern China, dated at 125 million years ago (Ma). These three insect taxa with ramified antennae consist of three unrelated lineages and provide evidence for broad structural convergence that historically has been best demonstrated by features such as convergent mouthparts. In addition, ramified antennae in these Mid-Mesozoic lineages likely do not constitute a key innovation, as they are not associated with significantly increased diversification compared with closely related lineages lacking this trait, and nor are they ecologically isolated from numerous, co-occurring insect species with unmodified antennae.

Foot scales in the Early Cretaceous bird Gansus from China provide evidences on the evolution of avian scales

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Zhao ◽  
Zhiheng Li ◽  
He Zhang ◽  
Yanhong Pan
Keyword(s):  
Signaling Pathway ◽  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
The Other ◽  
Signaling Modules

Abstract Most modern birds have scales covering the foot, while our knowledge of early avian scales is limited, mainly due to the scarcity of fossil record. Here we characterize the morphological details of two types of scales preserved in IVPP V15077, a referred specimen of the Early Cretaceous bird Gansus. The scutellate and interstitial scales, which, in combination with previous discovery of scutate and reticulate scales in other Early Cretaceous birds, indicates that all four types present in modern birds have appeared in the Early Cretaceous. A phylogenetic context of fossilized scales suggests that the evolution of reticulate scales is conservative while that of the other types is more variable. It is consistent with the molecular hypothesis of the scales in modern birds and reptiles that most integumentary structures in amniotes are homologous with modified signaling modules to form various integumentary phenotypes, among which the reticulate scales may use the conserved signaling pathway.

scholarly journals How predictable is extinction? Forecasting species survival at million-year timescales

2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1788) ◽  
pp. 20190392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Smits ◽  
Seth Finnegan
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Rank Order ◽  
Extinction Risk ◽  
Geographical Range ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Future ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Over Time

A tenet of conservation palaeobiology is that knowledge of past extinction patterns can help us to better predict future extinctions. Although the future is unobservable, we can test the strength of this proposition by asking how well models conditioned on past observations would have predicted subsequent extinction events at different points in the geological past. To answer this question, we analyse the well-sampled fossil record of Cenozoic planktonic microfossil taxa (Foramanifera, Radiolaria, diatoms and calcareous nanoplankton). We examine how extinction probability varies over time as a function of species age, time of observation, current geographical range, change in geographical range, climate state and change in climate state. Our models have a 70–80% probability of correctly forecasting the rank order of extinction risk for a random out-of-sample species pair, implying that determinants of extinction risk have varied only modestly through time. We find that models which include either historical covariates or account for variation in covariate effects over time yield equivalent forecasts, but a model including both is overfit and yields biased forecasts. An important caveat is that human impacts may substantially disrupt range-risk dynamics so that the future will be less predictable than it has been in the past. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?’

A new genus and first Cenozoic fossil record of moth lacewings (Neuroptera: Ithonidae) from the Early Eocene of North America

Zootaxa ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 2063 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
VLADIMIR N. MAKARKIN ◽  
S. BRUCE ARCHIBALD
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Early Eocene ◽  
New Genus And Species

A new genus and species Allorapisma chuorum gen. sp. nov. is described from the Early Eocene locality at Republic, Washington, U.S.A. The forewing venation of Allorapisma is most similar to that of the genus Principiala Makarkin & Menon from the Early Cretaceous of Brazil and Britain. A new, informal suprageneric taxon consisting of these genera is proposed, the Principiala group. The habitats of extant and fossil Ithonidae are briefly discussed.

scholarly journals Osteohistological analyses reveal diverse strategies of theropod dinosaur body-size evolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1939) ◽  
pp. 20202258
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Cullen ◽  
Juan I. Canale ◽  
Sebastián Apesteguía ◽  
Nathan D. Smith ◽  
Dongyu Hu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fossil Record ◽  
Weight Bearing ◽  
Growth Patterns ◽  
Growth Strategies ◽  
Theropod Dinosaur ◽  
Physiological Constraints ◽  
Size Evolution ◽  
Acceleration Model ◽  
Extensive Growth ◽  
Body Size Evolution

The independent evolution of gigantism among dinosaurs has been a topic of long-standing interest, but it remains unclear if gigantic theropods, the largest bipeds in the fossil record, all achieved massive sizes in the same manner, or through different strategies. We perform multi-element histological analyses on a phylogenetically broad dataset sampled from eight theropod families, with a focus on gigantic tyrannosaurids and carcharodontosaurids, to reconstruct the growth strategies of these lineages and test if particular bones consistently preserve the most complete growth record. We find that in skeletally mature gigantic theropods, weight-bearing bones consistently preserve extensive growth records, whereas non-weight-bearing bones are remodelled and less useful for growth reconstruction, contrary to the pattern observed in smaller theropods and some other dinosaur clades. We find a heterochronic pattern of growth fitting an acceleration model in tyrannosaurids, with allosauroid carcharodontosaurids better fitting a model of hypermorphosis. These divergent growth patterns appear phylogenetically constrained, representing extreme versions of the growth patterns present in smaller coelurosaurs and allosauroids, respectively. This provides the first evidence of a lack of strong mechanistic or physiological constraints on size evolution in the largest bipeds in the fossil record and evidence of one of the longest-living individual dinosaurs ever documented.

A new genus and species of spoon-winged lacewing from the Cretaceous Crato Formation in Brazil (Neuroptera: Nemopteridae)

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 338-341
Author(s):  
ANDRÉ NEL ◽  
CRISTIAN PELLA
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
New Genus ◽  
Late Eocene ◽  
New Genus And Species ◽  
Burmese Amber ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
Stem Group

The lacewing family Nemopteridae Burmeister, 1839 is very poorly represented in the fossil record with three Early Cretaceous genera of uncertain affinities from the Brazilian Crato Formation, one ‘mid’-Cretaceous representative of the stem group of the Crocinae Navás, 1910 in the Burmese amber, and two Cenozoic nemopterine genera Marquettia Navás, 1913 (late Eocene-early Oligocene) and Paleonemia Claisse et al., 2019 (middle Oligocene). Also two undetermined Nemopterinae are recorded from the late Eocene and the Oligocene (Lu et al., 2019a: Table 1; Claisse et al., 2019).

scholarly journals Environmental drivers of crocodyliform extinction across the Jurassic/Cretaceous transition

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1826) ◽  
pp. 20152840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan P. Tennant ◽  
Philip D. Mannion ◽  
Paul Upchurch
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Likelihood Methods ◽  
Extinction Rates ◽  
Maximum Likelihood Methods ◽  
Ecological Pressure ◽  
Biodiversity Decline

Crocodyliforms have a much richer evolutionary history than represented by their extant descendants, including several independent marine and terrestrial radiations during the Mesozoic. However, heterogeneous sampling of their fossil record has obscured their macroevolutionary dynamics, and obfuscated attempts to reconcile external drivers of these patterns. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of crocodyliform biodiversity through the Jurassic/Cretaceous (J/K) transition using subsampling and phylogenetic approaches and apply maximum-likelihood methods to fit models of extrinsic variables to assess what mediated these patterns. A combination of fluctuations in sea-level and episodic perturbations to the carbon and sulfur cycles was primarily responsible for both a marine and non-marine crocodyliform biodiversity decline through the J/K boundary, primarily documented in Europe. This was tracked by high extinction rates at the boundary and suppressed origination rates throughout the Early Cretaceous. The diversification of Eusuchia and Notosuchia likely emanated from the easing of ecological pressure resulting from the biodiversity decline, which also culminated in the extinction of the marine thalattosuchians in the late Early Cretaceous. Through application of rigorous techniques for estimating biodiversity, our results demonstrate that it is possible to tease apart the complex array of controls on diversification patterns in major archosaur clades.

scholarly journals Theropod tracks from the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary, Tuchengzi Formation, Chengde, China: Review and new observations

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-282
Author(s):  
Lida Xing ◽  
Martin G. Lockley
Keyword(s):  
Early Cretaceous ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Size Range ◽  
Lower Jurassic ◽  
Theropod Dinosaur ◽  
Rock Wall ◽  
Explicit Reference ◽  
Theropod Tracks ◽  
Shape And Size ◽  
Tuchengzi Formation

Previously known theropod dinosaur footprints preserved as natural casts in the Tuchengzi Formation, on a rock wall beside the railway in Nanshuangmiao Village, Shangbancheng Town, Chengde City, were originally assigned to ichnogenus Anchisauripus and tentatively attributed to oviraptosaurs. The assemblage was restudied in more detail by examining the entire assemblage of 55 tracks associated with two horizons. The size range of the 27 measured tracks suggests a more diverse grallatorid–eubrontid assemblage and potentially greater diversity of theropod trackmakers. The label Anchisauripus, which has fallen into disuse in some recent literature, implies trackmakers of medium shape and size in the grallatorid–eubrontid morphological spectrum. However, given the presence of other theropod ichnotaxa in the Jurassic to Early Cretaceous strata of the Tuchengzi Formation and time equivalent units we suggest that explicit reference to the Grallator-Anchisauripus-Eubrontes (GAE) plexus, or simply the term Grallator-Eubrontes plexus be confined to Lower Jurassic assemblages as originally defined and intended. Further study centered on the 16 known Tuchengzi assemblages and older theropod ichnfaunas is necessary to confirm or refute the degree to which grallatorid–eubrontid assemblages from these different epochs are similar or convergent. Even if the tracks are morphologically very similar inferences regarding trackmaker identity are problematic because the same theropodan trackmaker species, genera or even families were not present in both epochs.

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