Paleontologists have added another species to the Cretaceous-period dinosaur fauna of Europe, and this one was found in Normandy, France.
An abelisaurid tooth associated with the holotype specimen of Caletodraco cottardi. Image credit: Buffetaut et al., doi: 10.3390/fossils2030009.
Caletodraco cottardi lived in what is now France durign the Cenomanian age of the Early Cretaceous epoch, some 100 million years ago.
The ancient species was a member of Furileusauria, a subgroup of derived abelisaurid dinosaurs (medium- to large-sized bipedal predators that were predominant in the carnivorous fauna during the Late Cretaceous of the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana) previously known only from South America.
“When the family Abelisauridae was erected in 1985, it included the single species Abelisaurus comahuensis, a large carnivorous dinosaur from the Campanian of Patagonia,” said Dr. Eric Buffetaut from PSL Research University and his colleagues.
“It has since become apparent that the Abelisauridae actually constitute a major radiation of neoceratosaurian theropods that played an important part in the Cretaceous continental ecosystems of South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar.”
“Although the Abelisauridae have a mainly Gondwanan distribution, an abelisaurid was reported from the Late Cretaceous of southern France as early as 1988, and they are now known from Cretaceous localities in several European countries, including France, Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands.”
Two blocks containing the fossilized bones and teeth of Caletodraco cottardi were unearthed the paleotnologist Nicolas Cottard at the foot of the sea cliffs at Saint-Jouin-Bruneval on the coast of the Pays de Caux, in the department of Seine-Maritime, Normandy, north-western France.
“The glauconitic chalk of the Pays de Caux is a marine deposit, as indicated in the present case by a shark tooth present in the matrix, close to one of the bones in the anterior block,” the paleontologists said.
“The nearest land area — where the dinosaur described below probably lived — must have been the Armorican Massif, about 100 km to the south-west.”
“The dinosaur specimen must somehow have been carried out to sea, possibly by a stream, after which it must have floated over a fairly long distance until it sank to the bottom.”
“Occurrences of dinosaur remains in marine deposits are rather frequent, although this seems to be the first record from the Late Cretaceous Chalk of the Pays de Caux, where the only relatively common vertebrate fossils are fish teeth.”
The presence of the furileusaurian abelisaurid Caletodraco cottardi in the Cenomanian of Normandy suggests that the history of the Abelisauridae in Europe was more complex than previosuly thought.
“The discovery of Caletodraco cottardi shows that dinosaur remains, although exceedingly rare, do occur in the Chalk of the Anglo-Paris basin and that a careful search for fossil vertebrates in these marine formations can yield surprising and important results,” the researchers said.
“The new species leads to a reassessment of the fossil record of abelisaurids in Europe, showing that, contrary to what could previously be assumed, majungasaurines were not the only abelisaurid subgroup present in that geographical area, since Caletodraco cottardi apparently belongs to the Furileusauria, a highly derived clade of Abelisauridae.”
“Caletodraco cottardi is one of the earliest known Furileusauria and its occurrence in Europe leads to reconsider the biogeographical history of this group of theropods, hitherto known from South America.”
A paper on the findings was published online in the journal Fossil Studies.
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Eric Buffetaut et al. 2024. Caletodraco cottardi: A New Furileusaurian Abelisaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Cenomanian Chalk of Normandy (North-Western France). Foss. Stud 2 (3): 177-195; doi: 10.3390/fossils2030009
Source : Breaking Science News