Ricardo N. Martínez & Cecilia Apaldetti (2017)
A late Norian-Rhaetian coelophysid neotheropod (Dinosauria, Saurischia) from the Quebrada del Barro Formation, northwestern Argentina.
Ameghiniana (advance online publication)
doi:10.5710/AMGH.09.04.2017.3065
Coelophysoids are the most abundant theropod dinosaurs known from the Late Triassic through Early Jurassic represent the earliest major radiation of Neotheropoda. Within Coelophysoidea sensu lato the most stable clade is Coelophysidae, small theropods characterized by long neck and light and kinetic skull. Coelophysids are the most abundant basal non-Tetanurae neotheropods known worldwide, but until recently they were unknown from South America. We report here a new coelophysid neotheropod, Lucianosaurus bonoi gen. et sp. nov., from the late Norian-Rhaetian Quebrada del Barro Formation, northwestern Argentina. A phylogenetic analysis recovers Lucianosaurus bonoi nested into the monophyletic group Coelophysidae in an unresolved clade together with Coelophysis rhodesiensis and Camposaurus arizonensis. The presence of Lucianosaurus in the late Norian-Rhaetian of Argentina increases the poor and scarce record of Triassic South American neotheropods, suggesting that the virtual absence of theropods in the fossil record during the Raethian is probably a taphonomic/stratigraphic bias instead of a decline in diversity and abundance after the Norian. Finally, the new find corroborates the American endemism in the Late Triassic and worldwide distribution during the Early Jurassic of coelophysid neotheropods, supporting the extreme faunal homogeneity hypothesized for Early Jurassic continental biotas.
==
Originally identified as a ornthischian dinosaur, now an archosauromorph of uncertain placement
Lucianosaurus wildi Hunt and Lucas, 1994 (archosauromorph)
Pg. 235:
Lucianosaurus wildi
Hunt, A.P. and Lucas, S.G. 1994.
Ornithischian dinosaurs from the Upper Triassic of the United States.
In: Fraser, N.C. and Sues, H.-D. (eds), In the Shadow of the Dinosaurs: Early Mesozoic Tetrapods. Cambridge University Press, pp. 227-241.