A brand new genus and species of early-diverging oviraptorosaurian dinosaur has been recognized from two specimens present in Inside Mongolia, China.
Life reconstruction of Yuanyanglongbainian. Picture credit score: Sci.Information / Ddinodan.
“Oviraptorosauria is a gaggle of specialised pennaraptoran theropods identified primarily from an considerable 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 College, and colleagues.
“Lately, a collection of recent discoveries have enriched our data of their range, behaviors, ontogeny and reproductive biology.”
“With over 40 genera named, unquestionable oviraptorosaurs embody the earliest-diverging species resembling Incisivosaurus and Caudipterygidae from northeastern China, and extremely specialised edentulous species resembling Wrapping up from the Gobi Desert, Oviraptoridae from jap Asia and Caenagnathidae from Asia and North America, with most identified species being from the Late Cretaceous.”
The brand new oviraptorosaur species lived in what’s now China in the course of the Early Cretaceous, some 110 million years in the past.
Named Yuanyanglongbainianit shows a singular mixture of morphological options distinguishing it from all beforehand identified oviraptorosaurs.
“Yuanyanglongbainian will be recognized as an oviraptorosaur based mostly on the brief and deep cranium in addition to a number of pelvic characters (i.e. a midway-placed triangular obturator course of on the ischium and a virtually ventrally-directed lengthy pubis),” the paleontologists stated.
“Amongst oviraptorosaurs, nonetheless, Yuanyanglongbainian reveals distinctive mixture of options not shared by beforehand identified clades, such because the hooked posterior means of the pubic boot which is longer than the rounded anterior course of.”
Two articulated skeletons of Yuanyanglongbainiantogether with a partial cranium and a few postcranial bones, have been collected in the summertime of 2021 from the Maortu locality of the Miaogou Formation in Chilantai, western Inside Mongolia, China.
The invention provides the primary Early Cretaceous oviraptorosaur file close to the Gobi Desert, and supplies further insights into the biology and ecology of early-diverging oviraptorosaurs.
“This new species is intermediate in morphology between the earliest-diverging and late-diverging oviraptorosaurs, and our phylogenetic evaluation helps it as a sister taxon to the clade shaped by Avimimidae and Caenagathoidea,” the researchers stated.
“Notably, this new early-diverging oviraptorosaur has an ilium with a particularly brief postacetabular course of and hindlimbs with proportionally elongate and fused decrease segments, a personality mixture unknown amongst different oviraptorosaurs however frequent in wading birds, suggesting a possible ecology involving wading.”
“Preserved gastroliths just like Caudipteryx counsel a gastric mill operate in our new species, and our preliminary observations point out potential discrepancies within the digestion mode of early- and late-diverging oviraptorosaurs.”
The staff’s findings have been printed within the journal Cretaceous Analysis.
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Mingze Hao et al. A brand new oviraptorosaur from the Decrease Cretaceous Miaogou Formation of western Inside Mongolia, China. Cretaceous Analysisprinted on-line October 24, 2024; doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2024.106023