A brief introduction to the Early dinosaurs from Argentina.

Articulated skeleton of Eoraptor lunensi (From Sereno 2013)

The oldest record of Argentinean dinosaurs comes from the Ischigualasto Formation, NW Argentina, dated from 231.4 Ma to 225.9 Ma. Adolf Stelzner in 1889 published the first data on the geology of Ischigualasto, but it was not until 1911 that Guillermo Bodenbender briefly refers to the fossils of the site. In the early 40′s, Joaquin Frenguelli, initiates a geological survey in the western margin of the basin. Later, in 1943, Angel Cabrera described fragmentary therapsid fossils. However, intensive paleontological study of the Ischigualasto and Chañares Formations, began only in the late 1950s.

The Ischigualasto Formation has 300–700 m of mudstone, sandstone, conglomerate, and basalt, and consists of four lithostratigraphic members which in ascending order include the La Peña Member, the Cancha de Bochas Member, the Valle de la Luna Member, and the Quebrada de la Sal Member. Eight valid species of dinosaurs are known from the Ischigualasto Formation: Pisanosaurus mertii, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, Sanjuansaurus gordilloi, Eodromaeus murphi, Eoraptor lunensis, Panphagia protos, and Chromogisaurus novasi.

 

Skull of Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis (Sereno, 2013)

Pisanosaurus mertii is a small specimen, know by an incomplete maxilla and lower jaw fragments bearing teeth, vertebrae, incomplete hind limb, and the impression of the pelvis. Described in 1967 by Rodolfo Casamiquela, Pisanosaurus is considered as the oldest known ornithischian.

Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis was described by Osvaldo Reig in 1963. The taxon is one of the best known Triassic dinosaurs and the largest dinosaur of the Ischigualasto Formation. Herrerasaurus was fully bipedal, with strong hind limbs, short thighs and long feet. The skull has a rectangular profile and a transversely narrow snout (Sereno and Novas, 1992). The presence of two sacral vertebrae and lack of brevis fossa made Herrerasaurus, and other herrerasaurids, a controversial group.

Sanjuansaurus gordilloi is similar to Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, although more gracile and possessing short and straight pubis among other differences (Alcober & Martínez, 2010). It’s known from one specimen that preserves left maxilla, partial axial column, scapulae, left ulna, ungual of manual digit III, partial left ilium and pubis, both femora and tibiae, right fibula, right astragalus and calcaneum, and left metatarsal.

Skull and skeleton of Eodromaeus murphi
(PVSJ 560). Scale bar equals 10 cm.

Eodromaeus murphi is a small species with a total length of about 1.2 metres, known from five specimens. The trunk was long and slender, and forelimbs were shorter than the hindlimbs. The skull is relatively low and lightly built with a relatively spacious antorbital fenestra.  A phylogenetic analysis places Eodromaeus within Theropoda as the sister taxon to Neotheropoda

Eoraptor lunensis is known from eight specimens, including the holotype that preserves most of the skeleton. Eoraptor had a slender body with an estimated weight of about 10 kilograms. The lightly built skull has a slightly enlarged external naris and the premaxilla is observed to have a slender posterolateral process. The long bones of the hind limb have more robust shafts than those of Eodromaeus, although in both genera the tibia remains slightly longer than the femur (Sereno et al., 2013). Initially considered a basal theropod, the sauropodomorph affinity of Eoraptor has been strengthened after the publication of its anatomy in 2013.

Panphagia protos is a small species, known from one partial skeleton including several skull bones, lower jaw, and partial axial skeleton. The specimen is an immature individual with an estimated body length of approximately 1.30 m. It was originally proposed as the most basal sauropodomorph (Martinez and Alcober, 2009)

Chromogisaurus novasi is also similar in size to Eoraptor lunensis. It’s known from a partial skeleton lacking the skull. It includes elements of the front and hind limbs, the pelvis and two caudal vertebrae.

References:

Martín D. EZCURRA & Ricardo N. MARTÍNEZ (2016), Dinosaur precursors and early dinosaurs from Argentina., In book: Historia Evolutiva y Paleobiogeografía de los Vertebrados de América del Sur, Publisher: Contribuciones del MACN, Editors: F. Agnolíin, G.L. Lio, F. Brissón Egli, N.R. Chimento, F. Novas, pp.97-107

Reig, O.A. (1963). “La presencia de dinosaurios saurisquios en los “Estratos de Ischigualasto” (Mesotriásico Superior) de las provincias de San Juan y La Rioja (República Argentina)”. Ameghiniana (in Spanish). 3 (1): 3–20.

Sereno, P.C.; Novas, F.E. (1992). “The complete skull and skeleton of an early dinosaur”. Science. 258 (5085): 1137–1140.

Ricardo N. Martinez; Paul C. Sereno; Oscar A. Alcober; Carina E. Colombi; Paul R. Renne; Isabel P. Montañez; Brian S. Currie (2011). “A Basal Dinosaur from the Dawn of the Dinosaur Era in Southwestern Pangaea”. Science. 331 (6014): 206–210. doi:10.1126/science.1198467

Martinez RN, Alcober OA (2009) A Basal Sauropodomorph (Dinosauria: Saurischia) from the Ischigualasto Formation (Triassic, Carnian) and the Early Evolution of Sauropodomorpha. PLoS ONE 4(2): e4397. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004397

Ezcurra, M. D. 2010. “A new early dinosaur (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha) from the Late Triassic of Argentina: a reassessment of dinosaur origin and phylogeny.” Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 8: 371-425.

 

Dracorex hogwartsia: A fantastic beast and where to find it.

The cover of the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

It has been nearly 20 years since Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone was released. Written by  J. K. Rowling, the book was the first of a saga about a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The original seven books were adapted into an eight-part film series. In 2011, the last part of the saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 debuted in cinemas worldwide. Now, the magic world of Harry Potter is returning to the big screen. “Fantastic Beasts and where to find it” takes place in the Harry Potter Universe almost 80 years before Harry himself enters the scene. The story follows Newt Scamander, a British wizard and magic-zoologist. After being expelled from Hogwarts, Scamander joined to the Ministry of Magic and spent two years in the Office for House-Elf Relocation before being transferred to the Beast Division. Due to his extensive knowledge of magical creatures, Augustus Worme of Obscurus Books commissioned Scamander to write the first edition of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”.

Skeletal reconstruction of Dracorex hogwartsia in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (From Wikimedia Commons)

Scamander travelled to numerous cities doing research for his book and in 1926 he arrived to New York, a city full of great economic inequality and where wizards were forced to hide. Years later, Scamander worked extensively with the Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau, which led him on expeditions all over the world, collecting information for new editions of Fantastic Beasts. Published in 1927, Fantastic Beasts became an approved textbook at Hogwarts. Among the beasts included in the book are Acromantula, the Basilisk, Manticore and different types of Dragons. Most probably, Scamander would have included Dracorex hogwartsia in a new edition of the book.

Dracorex is known from one nearly complete skull discovered in the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota and donated to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis in 2004. It was described by Bob Bakker and Robert Sullivan in 2006. The  name was taken from the Latin words for dragon, draco, and king, rex, and the latinized name for Hogwarts, hogwartsia. 

Dracorex skull (Image credit: The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis)

Dracorex is a dinosaur genus of the family Pachycephalosauridae, a diverse group of small, herbivorous dinosaurs, characterized by short forelimbs, stocky and powerful hind limbs, and a short, thick neck. Their most distinguishing feature was the development of a cranial dome, which is formed by the fusion and thickening of the frontals and parietals, and in some species, peripheral bones of the skull roof. Their remains are known from the Late Cretaceous of North America, Asia, and possibly Europe. The group include Pachycephalosaurus, Stegoceras, Stygimoloch and Prenocephale

Dracorex is similar to Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch, but differs from them in having a flat skull, four-spiked squamosals, enlarged supratemporal fenestrae and a skull covered entirely with dermal ossicles (knobs, rugosities, and spikes). In a paper published in 2009 , it was suggested that “Dracorex” and “Stygimoloch” represent younger ontogenetic stages of Pachycephalosaurus. 

 

References:

Bakker, R. T., Sullivan, R. M., Porter, V., Larson, P. and Saulsbury, S.J. (2006). “Dracorex hogwartsia, n. gen., n. sp., a spiked, flat-headed pachycephalosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota.” in Lucas, S. G. and Sullivan, R. M., eds., Late Cretaceous vertebrates from the Western Interior. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 35, pp. 331–345. 

Horner J.R. and Goodwin, M.B. (2009). “Extreme cranial ontogeny in the Upper Cretaceous Dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus.” PLoS ONE, 4(10): e7626

Newt Scamander. Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2001

A Unique Late Triassic Dinosauromorph Assemblage from Brazil

The skull of Buriolestes shultzi. (Image credit: Cabreira et al., 2016)

The Santa Maria Formation in southern Brazil, comprises a succession of Middle to Late Triassic sedimentary rocks that have been long renowned for their rich tetrapod fossils including one of the oldest (and the best preserved) associations of dinosaur and dinosaur precursor, respectively represented by new species of Lagerpetidae and Sauropodomorph.

The lagerpetids, a family of basal dinosauromorphs, are represented by a semi-articulated skeleton and a pair of fragmentary femora. As for the dinosaurs, a large articulated individual was preserved, together with smaller and non-duplicated bone elements that indicate the presence of another individual The two articulated specimens are named  Ixalerpeton polesinensis and Buriolestes shultzi.

Ixalerpeton polesinensis helps to define traits of anatomical parts previously unknown for lagerpetids. For example, a skull roof broader than that of most early dinosaurs, an anterior tympanic recess in the braincase, as is typical of Dinosauriforme, although retains traits unknown to that group, such as a large post-temporal fenestra, a postfrontal bone, and a frontal not excavated by the supratemporal fossa.

A: Skeletal reconstruction of Ixalerpeton polesinensis. B: Skull roof. C: Braincase. Abbreviations: f, frontal; fm, foramen magnum; p, parietal; pof, postfrontal; pp, paroccipital process; so, supraoccipital. (Adapted from Cabreira et al., 2016)

 

Buriolestes shultzi is the earliest member of Sauropodomorpha, although lacks usual sauropodomorph traits such as a reduced skull and an enlarged external naris, and as in all early dinosaurs, the frontal is excavated by the supratemporal fossa. As typical of sauropodomorphs, the humerus is longer than 60% the length of the femur, and the deltopectoral crest extends for more than 40% of its length. The dentary traits are compatible with a faunivorous diet suggesting that early members of the Sauropodomorpha were likely predators.

The fossils, found by a team from the Lutheran University of Brazil, confirms that the co-occurrence between non-dinosaurian Dinosauromorpha and dinosaurs was not restricted to later stages of the Triassic and to the northern parts of Pangaea, suggesting that a rapid replacement was a very unlikely scenario for the initial radiation of dinosaurs.

References:

Cabreira et al., A Unique Late Triassic Dinosauromorph Assemblage Reveals Dinosaur Ancestral Anatomy and Diet, Current Biology (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.09.040

Langer, M.C., Nesbitt, S.J., Bittencourt, J.S., and Irmis, R.B. (2013). Non-dinosaurian Dinosauromorpha. Geol. Soc. Spec. Publ. 379, 157–186.