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New Dinosaur Species and News - 12/2/2020
An unusual new sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia
Alexander O. AverianovORCID Icon &Alexey V. Lopatin Received 14 Aug 2019, Accepted 03 Jan 2020, Published online: 11 Feb 2020
A new sauropod, Abdarainurus barsboldi gen. et sp. nov., is described based on several anterior and one middle caudal vertebrae and chevrons from the Late Cretaceous Alagteeg Formation at Abdrant Nuru, northern Gobi Desert, Mongolia. The new taxon is characterized by 16 unique or rare characters of the caudal skeleton, including opisthocoelous centra, longitudinal ridges on the neural canal walls, postprezygapophyseal processes, a hypertrophied postspinal fossa, mediolaterally constricted neural spines, and a deep pocket-like spinodiapophyseal fossa covered laterally by high postzygodiapophyseal lamina. Our preferred phylogenetic analysis places Abdarainurus as a basal titanosaurian sauropod, but this result could be affected by inadequate knowledge of basal titanosaurs. The new taxon likely represents a highly specialized lineage of Asian macronarian sauropods that was unknown previously.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...nalCode=tjsp20'Reaper of death,' newfound cousin of T. rex, discovered in Canada
By Laura Geggel - Associate Editor 2 days ago
The "reaper of death" is the first newfound tyrannosaur species to be named in Canada in 50 years.
Researchers have only two skulls from this new species, but here is what the dinosaur may have looked like nearly 80 million years ago.
(Image: © Julius Csotonyi)
The fossils of a newly discovered Tyrannosaurus rex cousin — a vicious, meat-eating dinosaur with serrated teeth and a monstrous face that scientists are calling the "reaper of death," has been discovered in Alberta, Canada.
At 79.5 million years old, Thanatotheristes degrootorum is the oldest known named tyrannosaur on record from northern North America, a region that includes Canada and the northern part of the western United States, said researchers of a new study on the discovery. It's also the first previously unknown tyrannosaur species to be discovered in Canada in 50 years.
"It definitely would have been quite an imposing animal, roughly 8 feet (2.4 meters) [tall] at the hips," study lead researcher Jared Voris, a doctoral student of paleontology at the University of Calgary in Alberta, told Live Science.
T. degrootorum lived during the Cretaceous period, the last period of the dinosaur age, which lasted from about 145 million to 65 million years ago. The imposing beast had a mouthful of steak-knife-like teeth that were more than 2.7 inches (7 centimeters) long. From snout to tail, the dinosaur measured about 26 feet (8 meters) long, or about the length of four king-size mattresses lined up end to end.
The researchers have only two partial skulls and jaws of the newfound tyrannosaur (so they couldn't estimate its mass, as the hind limbs are needed for that calculation), but the unearthed fossils were enough to define the creature as a newfound species, they said.
Like other tyrannosaurs, the "reaper of death" ("Thanatos" is the Greek god of death and "theristes" is Greek for "reaper," which is how the team derived Thanatotheristes), had strange bumps on its skull that gave it a monstrous appearance. But it also had a one-of-a-kind feature: a distinct set of vertical ridges that ran from its eyes along its upper snout.
"These ridges are not like anything we've ever seen before in other tyrannosaur species," Voris said. "Exactly what the ridges do, we're not quite sure."
https://www.livescience.com/t-rex-ty...ew-cousin.htmlDisassociated feathers in Burmese amber shed new light on mid-Cretaceous dinosaurs and avifauna
Even in the absence of associated skeletal material, isolated feathers in amber remain of high scientific interest. The remarkable preservation of these delicate structures in amber, implies a potential for significantly improving our knowledge of feather evolution and diversity. A large sample set of 150 Burmese amber specimens (Upper Cretaceous, ~99 Ma) containing feathers is herein described. Several structural types can be differentiated including flight feathers, contour feathers, semiplumes, and filoplumes. In some cases, peculiar pigmentation patterns and structural features can be documented. Additionally, different developmental stages have been captured in this assemblage with some examples of erupting feathers or neoptile plumage. Comparisons with previous studies including skeletal material described in amber, show that Enantiornithes and non avialan dinosaurs are most likely represented in the assemblage as well as unknown taxa.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...42937X20300502
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