Paleontologists bear added every other species to the Cretaceous-duration dinosaur fauna of Europe, and this one was once stumbled on in Normandy, France.
An abelisaurid teeth associated with the holotype specimen of Caletodraco cottardi. Image credit rating: Buffetaut et al., doi: 10.3390/fossils2030009.
Caletodraco cottardi lived in what is now France durign the Cenomanian age of the Early Cretaceous epoch, some 100 million years in the past.
The aged species was once a member of Furileusauria, a subgroup of derived abelisaurid dinosaurs (medium- to huge-sized bipedal predators that had been predominant in the carnivorous fauna right by the Unimaginative Cretaceous of the aged southern supercontinent Gondwana) previously identified very finest from South The US.
“When the family Abelisauridae was once erected in 1985, it included the one species Abelisaurus comahuensis, an unlimited carnivorous dinosaur from the Campanian of Patagonia,” acknowledged Dr. Eric Buffetaut from PSL Study University and his colleagues.
“It has since become obvious that the Abelisauridae genuinely yelp a well-known radiation of neoceratosaurian theropods that performed the first allotment in the Cretaceous continental ecosystems of South The US, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar.”
“Despite the truth that the Abelisauridae bear a essentially Gondwanan distribution, an abelisaurid was once reported from the Unimaginative Cretaceous of southern France as early as 1988, and as well they’re genuinely identified from Cretaceous localities in different European international locations, collectively with France, Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands.”
Two blocks containing the fossilized bones and teeth of Caletodraco cottardi had been unearthed the paleotnologist Nicolas Cottard on the foot of the sea cliffs at Saint-Jouin-Bruneval on the flee of the Pays de Caux, in the division of Seine-Maritime, Normandy, north-western France.
“The glauconitic chalk of the Pays de Caux is a marine deposit, as indicated in the repeat case by a shark teeth repeat in the matrix, discontinuance to belief to be among the bones in the anterior block,” the paleontologists acknowledged.
“The nearest land dwelling — where the dinosaur described under doubtlessly lived — must had been the Armorican Massif, about 100 km to the south-west.”
“The dinosaur specimen must one plan or the opposite had been implemented to sea, per chance by a movement, after which it must bear floated over a somewhat long distance except it sank to the bottom.”
“Occurrences of dinosaur stays in marine deposits are somewhat frequent, despite the truth that this seems the first chronicle from the Unimaginative Cretaceous Chalk of the Pays de Caux, where the staunch slightly general vertebrate fossils are fish teeth.”
The presence of the furileusaurian abelisaurid Caletodraco cottardi in the Cenomanian of Normandy suggests that the history of the Abelisauridae in Europe was once more advanced than previosuly belief.
“The discovery of Caletodraco cottardi shows that dinosaur stays, despite the truth that exceedingly rare, elevate out happen in the Chalk of the Anglo-Paris basin and that a cautious see for fossil vertebrates in these marine formations can yield comely and annoying outcomes,” the researchers acknowledged.
“The new species ends in a reassessment of the fossil chronicle of abelisaurids in Europe, exhibiting that, opposite to what would possibly per chance per chance even previously be assumed, majungasaurines weren’t the staunch abelisaurid subgroup repeat in that geographical dwelling, since Caletodraco cottardi it seems belongs to the Furileusauria, a highly derived clade of Abelisauridae.”
“Caletodraco cottardi is belief to be among the earliest identified Furileusauria and its occurrence in Europe ends in think again the biogeographical history of this community of theropods, hitherto identified from South The US.”
A paper on the findings was once printed online in the journal Fossil Study.
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Eric Buffetaut et al. 2024. Caletodraco cottardi: A Modern Furileusaurian Abelisaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Cenomanian Chalk of Normandy (North-Western France). Foss. Stud 2 (3): 177-195; doi: 10.3390/fossils2030009
