Paleontologists have identified a new genus and species of sauropod dinosaur from a semi-articulated specimen found in the 1990s in northern Wyoming, the United States.
Life reconstruction of Ardetosaurus viator. Image credit: Ole Zant.
The newly-described species roamed Earth during the Late Jurassic epoch, some 150 million years ago.
Dubbed Ardetosaurus viator, this dinosaur was a type of diplodocid, a family of sauropod dinosaurs that includes some of the longest creatures ever to walk the planet.
“Sauropods are among the best studied dinosaurs and include the largest terrestrial vertebrates throughout most of the Mesozoic,” said Tom van der Linden of the Oertijdmuseum and his colleagues.
“They are best recognized by their long necks and long tails, and their success can be attributed to their extreme size, an intricate bird-like air sac system, as well as their unique feeding and digestive strategies and oviparous reproduction.”
“Sauropod remains have been found on every continent, including Antarctica.”
“One of the most recognizable sauropod families is Diplodocidae, erected in 1884, and currently defined as ‘all diplodocids closer to Diplodocus than to Dicraeosaurus’.”
“These sauropods are generally characterized by their extremely long necks and even longer tails.”
“Diplodocid paleontology is a vibrant field of study, with many recent contributions on morphology, histology, biomechanics, pathologies, and ecology.”
“Diplodocids are known from North and South America, Europe, and Africa, and have a temporal range from the Oxfordian to possibly the early Valanginian (161 to 135 million years ago).”
“They became highly abundant and taxonomically diverse in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western United States during the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian (155 to 145 million years ago).”
The remains of Ardetosaurus viator were excavated in 1993 from the Howe-Stephens Quarry in the Morrison Formation.
“Ardetosaurus viator is the first skeletally mature sauropod specimen described from the Howe-Stephens Quarry,” the paleontologists said.
“This specimen sheds light on the variability of morphological features in diplodocine sauropods such as laminar capture in the cervico-dorsal transition and laminar transitions in caudal vertebrae,” they added.
“Additionally, the specimen preserves a relatively rare first chevron with a peculiar morphology, which in comparison with other sauropods and other non-avian dinosaurs, highlights the need to further investigate the possible recognition of sexual dimorphism in sauropod dinosaurs through micromorphological characteristics in chevrons.”
The team’s paper was published this month in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica.
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Tom T.P. van der Linden et al. 2024. A new diplodocine sauropod from the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, USA. Palaeontologia Electronica 27 (3): a50; doi: 10.26879/1380
Source : Breaking Science News