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[dinosaur] Bioerosion marks on titanosaur bones + Cretaceous plesiosaur from Spain






Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com


New papers:



Voltaire Dutra Paes Neto, Heitor Francischini, AgustÃn Guillermo Martinelli, Thiago Da Silva Marinho, Luiz Carlos Borges Ribeiro, Marina Bento Soares & Cesar Leandro Schultz (2018)
Bioerosion traces on titanosaurian sauropod bones from the Upper Cretaceous MarÃlia Formation of Brazil.
Alcheringa (advance online publication)
DOI: 10.1080/03115518.2018.1456561
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03115518.2018.1456561


Bone bioerosions provide an important taphonomic record on fossils from continental deposits dating back to the late Paleozoic. The morphological diversity of bone bioerosions is especially high in vertebrate remains from the Late Cretaceous. Here we describe four morphotypes of bioeroson preserved on titanosaur dinosaur bones collected from the Maastrichtian MarÃlia Formation of Brazil. These traces differ from previously described ichnotaxa, and include branching furrows and surface removal resembling insect bioerosions, channels with semicircular cross-sections consistent with either root etchings or insects, and bite traces left by vertebrates. Taphonomic sequencing shows that time-averaging was an important aspect in the genesis of the MarÃlia Formation taphocoenosis and demonstrates that traces left on bones are significant tools for reconstructing Late Cretaceous ecosystems.



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N. Bardet, M. Segura & A. PÃrez-GarcÃa (2018)Â
A plesiosaur (Reptilia, Sauropterygia) from the Cenomanian (Late Cretaceous) of Algora (Guadalajara Province, Central Spain).
Cretaceous Research (advance online publication)
DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2018.05.006
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667117305384



A new Plesiosauria specimen from the Cenomanian (early Late Cretaceous) of Algora (Castilla-La-Mancha, Spain) is described here. It represents the first one found in this area and one of the few from the Cretaceous of Spain, being the only one preserving several bones. This is also one of the few plesiosaur specimen found in the Cretaceous of Europe. The specimen consists of a caudal vertebra and an almost complete pelvic girdle, whose character combination permits to refer it to an indeterminate Elasmosauridae. This is the first evidence of plesiosaur in the coastal marine outcrops of Algora, which has already yielded terrestrial, freshwater and coastal reptile taxa. This plesiosaur specimen can therefore represents either a carcass of a pelagic animal thrown on the coast by waves and currents (thanatocoenosis), or remains of an animal living in the area (biocoenosis).