A brand unique genus and species of early-diverging oviraptorosaurian dinosaur has been known from two specimens repeat in Internal Mongolia, China.
Life reconstruction of Yuanyanglong bainian. Image credit rating: Sci.News / Ddinodan.
“Oviraptorosauria is a community of specialised pennaraptoran theropods known basically from an noteworthy Asian and North American Cretaceous fossil file,” stated Dr. Xing Xu, a paleontologist from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at Chinese language Academy of Sciences and the Centre for Vertebrate Evolutionary Biology at Yunnan University, and colleagues.
“In fresh years, a series of unique discoveries believe enriched our recordsdata of their diversity, behaviors, ontogeny and reproductive biology.”
“With over 40 genera named, unquestionable oviraptorosaurs encompass the earliest-diverging species equivalent to Incisivosaurus and Caudipterygidae from northeastern China, and extremely in actuality knowledgeable edentulous species equivalent to Avimimus from the Gobi Barren blueprint, Oviraptoridae from eastern Asia and Caenagnathidae from Asia and North The US, with most known species being from the Late Cretaceous.”
The unique oviraptorosaur species lived in what is now China at some level of the Early Cretaceous, some 110 million years ago.
Named Yuanyanglong bainian, it displays a distinctive combination of morphological parts distinguishing it from all beforehand known oviraptorosaurs.
“Yuanyanglong bainian can even be usually known as an oviraptorosaur in accordance to the short and deep skull as neatly as several pelvic characters (i.e. a midway-placed triangular obturator direction of on the ischium and a just about ventrally-directed prolonged pubis),” the paleontologists stated.
“Among oviraptorosaurs, however, Yuanyanglong bainian shows distinctive combination of parts no longer shared by beforehand known clades, such because the curved posterior direction of of the pubic boot which is longer than the rounded anterior direction of.”
Two articulated skeletons of Yuanyanglong bainian, together with a partial skull and some postcranial bones, were silent within the summer season of 2021 from the Maortu locality of the Miaogou Formation in Chilantai, western Internal Mongolia, China.
The discovery gives the first Early Cretaceous oviraptorosaur file advance the Gobi Barren blueprint, and gives extra insights into the biology and ecology of early-diverging oviraptorosaurs.
“This unique species is intermediate in morphology between the earliest-diverging and leisurely-diverging oviraptorosaurs, and our phylogenetic evaluation supports it as a sister taxon to the clade fashioned by Avimimidae and Caenagathoidea,” the researchers stated.
“Notably, this unique early-diverging oviraptorosaur has an ilium with an awfully short postacetabular direction of and hindlimbs with proportionally elongate and fused lower segments, a personality combination unknown among other oviraptorosaurs however fashioned in wading birds, suggesting a doable ecology intelligent wading.”
“Preserved gastroliths the same to Caudipteryx suggest a gastric mill purpose in our unique species, and our preliminary observations novel doable discrepancies within the digestion mode of early- and leisurely-diverging oviraptorosaurs.”
The crew’s findings were published within the journal Cretaceous Analysis.
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Mingze Hao et al. A brand unique oviraptorosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Miaogou Formation of western Internal Mongolia, China. Cretaceous Analysis, published on-line October 24, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2024.106023
