Equatorial pliosaurid from Venezuela marks the youngest South American occurrence of the clade.

Autor: Bastiaans D; Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich, Karl-Schmid-Strasse 4, 8006, Zürich, Switzerland., Madzia D; Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00-818, Warszawa, Poland. daniel.madzia@gmail.com., Carrillo-Briceño JD; Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich, Karl-Schmid-Strasse 4, 8006, Zürich, Switzerland., Sachs S; Abteilung Geowissenschaften, Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, Adenauerplatz 2, 33602, Bielefeld, Germany.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Scientific reports [Sci Rep] 2021 Jul 29; Vol. 11 (1), pp. 15501. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jul 29.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-94515-8
Abstrakt: Pliosaurids were the dominant macropredators in aquatic environments at least since the Middle Jurassic until their extinction in the early Late Cretaceous. Until very recently, the Cretaceous record of Pliosauridae has been poor and difficult to interpret from the taxonomic and phylogenetic perspective. Despite that the knowledge of Cretaceous pliosaurids improved in recent years, numerous aspects of their evolutionary history still remain only poorly known. Here, we report the first pliosaurid material from Venezuela. The taxon is most likely earliest Cenomanian in age, thus representing the youngest occurrence of Pliosauridae from South America. The Venezuelan taxon is based on a well-preserved tooth crown whose morphology and outer enamel structural elements appear to resemble especially those observable in the giant pliosaurid Sachicasaurus vitae from the Lower Cretaceous of Colombia. The new discovery extends the pliosaurid record on the continent by more than 10 million years and likely marks the southernmost Upper Cretaceous occurrence of Pliosauridae, worldwide. We also briefly discuss the affinities of the enigmatic Venezuelan elasmosaurid Alzadasaurus tropicus and highlight similarities to elasmosaurids from the Western Interior Seaway.
(© 2021. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
Externí odkaz:
Nepřihlášeným uživatelům se plný text nezobrazuje