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The Venice specimen of Ouranosaurus nigeriensis (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda).

ABSTRACT: Ouranosaurus nigeriensis is an iconic African dinosaur taxon that has been described on the basis of two nearly complete skeletons from the Lower Cretaceous Gadoufaoua locality of the Ténéré desert in Niger. The entire holotype and a few bones attributed to the paratype formed the basis of the original description by Taquet (1976). A mounted skeleton that appears to correspond to O. nigeriensis has been on public display since 1975, exhibited at the Natural History Museum of Venice. It was never explicitly reported whether the Venice specimen represents a paratype and therefore, the second nearly complete skeleton reported in literature or a third unreported skeleton. The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the complex history of the various skeletal remains that have been attributed to Ouranosaurus nigeriensis (aided by an unpublished field map of the paratype) and to describe in detail the osteology of the Venice skeleton. The latter includes the paratype material (found in 1970 and collected in 1972), with the exception of the left femur, the right coracoid and one manus ungual phalanx I, which were replaced with plaster copies, and (possibly) other manus phalanges. Some other elements (e.g., the first two chevrons, the right femur, the right tibia, two dorsal vertebrae and some pelvic bones) were likely added from other individual/s. The vertebral column of the paratype was articulated and provides a better reference for the vertebral count of this taxon than the holotype. Several anatomical differences are observed between the holotype and the Venice specimen. Most of them can be ascribed to intraspecific variability (individual or ontogenetic), but some are probably caused by mistakes in the preparation or assemblage of the skeletal elements in both specimens. The body length of the Venice skeleton is about 90% the linear size of the holotype. Osteohistological analysis (the first for this taxon) of some long bones, a rib and a dorsal neural spine reveals that the Venice specimen is a sub-adult; this conclusion is supported by somatic evidence of immaturity. The dorsal 'sail' formed by the elongated neural spines of the dorsal, sacral and proximal caudal vertebrae characterizes this taxon among ornithopods; a display role is considered to be the most probable function for this bizarre structure. Compared to the mid-1970s, new information from the Venice specimen and many iguanodontian taxa known today allowed for an improved diagnosis of O. nigeriensis.

SUBMITTER: Bertozzo F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5480399 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Venice specimen of Ouranosaurus nigeriensis (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda).

Bertozzo Filippo F Dalla Vecchia Fabio Marco FM Fabbri Matteo M

PeerJ 20170620

Ouranosaurus nigeriensis is an iconic African dinosaur taxon that has been described on the basis of two nearly complete skeletons from the Lower Cretaceous Gadoufaoua locality of the Ténéré desert in Niger. The entire holotype and a few bones attributed to the paratype formed the basis of the original description by Taquet (1976). A mounted skeleton that appears to correspond to O. nigeriensis has been on public display since 1975, exhibited at the Natural History Museum of Venice ...[more]

PMID: 28649466

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Project description:Diplodocidae are among the best known sauropod dinosaurs. Several species were described in the late 1800s or early 1900s from the Morrison Formation of North America. Since then, numerous additional specimens were recovered in the USA, Tanzania, Portugal, and Argentina, as well as possibly Spain, England, Georgia, Zimbabwe, and Asia. To date, the clade includes about 12 to 15 nominal species, some of them with questionable taxonomic status (e.g., 'Diplodocus' hayi or Dyslocosaurus polyonychius), and ranging in age from Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. However, intrageneric relationships of the iconic, multi-species genera Apatosaurus and Diplodocus are still poorly known. The way to resolve this issue is a specimen-based phylogenetic analysis, which has been previously implemented for Apatosaurus, but is here performed for the first time for the entire clade of Diplodocidae. The analysis includes 81 operational taxonomic units, 49 of which belong to Diplodocidae. The set of OTUs includes all name-bearing type specimens previously proposed to belong to Diplodocidae, alongside a set of relatively complete referred specimens, which increase the amount of anatomically overlapping material. Non-diplodocid outgroups were selected to test the affinities of potential diplodocid specimens that have subsequently been suggested to belong outside the clade. The specimens were scored for 477 morphological characters, representing one of the most extensive phylogenetic analyses of sauropod dinosaurs. Character states were figured and tables given in the case of numerical characters. The resulting cladogram recovers the classical arrangement of diplodocid relationships. Two numerical approaches were used to increase reproducibility in our taxonomic delimitation of species and genera. This resulted in the proposal that some species previously included in well-known genera like Apatosaurus and Diplodocus are generically distinct. Of particular note is that the famous genus Brontosaurus is considered valid by our quantitative approach. Furthermore, "Diplodocus" hayi represents a unique genus, which will herein be called Galeamopus gen. nov. On the other hand, these numerical approaches imply synonymization of "Dinheirosaurus" from the Late Jurassic of Portugal with the Morrison Formation genus Supersaurus. Our use of a specimen-, rather than species-based approach increases knowledge of intraspecific and intrageneric variation in diplodocids, and the study demonstrates how specimen-based phylogenetic analysis is a valuable tool in sauropod taxonomy, and potentially in paleontology and taxonomy as a whole.

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Dataset Information

The Venice specimen of Ouranosaurus nigeriensis (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda).

Publications

The Venice specimen of <i>Ouranosaurus nigeriensis</i> (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda).

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