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A New Oviraptorid Dinosaur (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) from the Late Cretaceous of Southern China and Its Paleobiogeographical Implications.

ABSTRACT: The Ganzhou area of Jiangxi Province, southern China is becoming one of the most productive oviraptorosaurian localities in the world. A new oviraptorid dinosaur was unearthed from the uppermost Upper Cretaceous Nanxiong Formation of Ganzhou area. It is characterized by an anterodorsally sloping occiput and quadrate (a feature shared with Citipati), a circular supratemporal fenestra that is much smaller than the lower temporal fenestra, and a dentary in which the dorsal margin above the external mandibular fenestra is strongly concave ventrally. The position of the anteroventral corner of the external naris in relation to the posterodorsal corner of the antorbital fenestra provides new insight into the craniofacial evolution of oviraptorosaurid dinosaurs. A phylogenetic analysis recovers the new taxon as closely related to the Mongolian Citipati. Six oviraptorid dinosaurs from the Nanxiong Formation (Ganzhou and Nanxiong) are distributed within three clades of the family. Each of the three clades from the Nanxiong Formation has close relatives in Inner Mongolia and Mongolia, and in both places each clade may have had a specific diet or occupied a different ecological niche. Oviraptorid dinosaurs were geographically widespread across Asia in the latest Cretaceous and were an important component of terrestrial ecosystems during this time.

SUBMITTER: Lu J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4489096 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundSouthwestern Henan Province in central China contains many down-faulted basins, including the Xixia Basin where the Upper Cretaceous continental sediments are well exposed. The Majiacun Formation is a major dinosaur-bearing stratigraphic unit that occurs in this basin.Methodology/principal findingsA new basal hadrosauroid dinosaur, Zhanghenglong yangchengensis gen. et sp. nov., is named based on newly collected specimens from the middle Santonian Majiacun Formation of Zhoujiagou Village, Xixia Basin. Two transitional features between basal hadrosauroids and hadrosaurids are attached to the diagnosis of the new taxon, namely five maxillary foramina consisting of four small scattered ones anteroposteriorly arranged in a row and a large one adjacent to the articular facet for the jugal, and dentary tooth crowns bearing both median and distally offset primary ridges. Zhanghenglong also displays a unique combination of plesiomorphic and derived features of hadrosauroids, and is clearly morphologically transitional between basal hadrosauroids and hadrosaurids. Furthermore, some measurement attributes in osteology are applied to the quantitative analysis of Zhanghenglong. For these attributes, the partition of the dataset on most hadrosauroid species resulting from model-based cluster analysis almost matches taxonomic separation between basal hadrosauroids and hadrosaurids. Data of Zhanghenglong on selected measurement attributes straddle the two combinations of intervals of partitioned datasets respectively related to basal hadrosauroids and hadrosaurids. This condition is similar to mosaic evolution of morphological characters present in the specimens of the taxon. The phylogenetic analysis of Hadrosauroidea recovers a clade composed of Zhanghenglong, Nanyangosaurus, and Hadrosauridae with an unresolved polytomy.Conclusions/significanceZhanghenglong is probably a relatively derived non-hadrosaurid hadrosauroid, based on the inferences made from the morphological comparisons, quantitative evaluation of measurements, and cladistic analysis. In combination with information on the stratigraphy, phylogeny and biogeography, the material of Zhanghenglong provides direct evidence for the hypothesis that hadrosaurids might have originated in Asia.

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A New Oviraptorid Dinosaur (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) from the Late Cretaceous of Southern China and Its Paleobiogeographical Implications.

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