Deinonychosaurian tracks from Gansu Province, China

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com

A new online paper:


Lida Xing, Daqing Li, Jerald D. Harris, Phil R. Bell, Yoichi Azuma,
Masato Fujita, Yuong-Nam Lee, and Philip J. Currie (2012)
A new Dromaeosauripus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) ichnospecies from the
Lower Cretaceous Hekou Group, Gansu Province, China.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica (in press)
doi:10.4202/app.2011.0115
http://app.pan.pl/article/item/app20110115.html


Herein we describe deinonychosaurian (Dinosauria: Theropoda) tracks in
the Lower Cretaceous Hekou Group at sites I and II of Liujiaxia
Dinosaur National Geopark, Gansu Province, China. The site preserves
71 didactyl tracks, the largest concentration of deinonychosaurian
tracks in Asia. The tracks pertain to a new dromaeopodid ichnospecies:
Dromaeosauripus yongjingensis ichnosp. nov., which is diagnosed by: a
digital pad formula of x-1-3-4-x and a mean divarication angle between
digits III and IV of 19°, and having the proximal portion of digit II
contacting the anterior margin of a large, rounded metatarsophalangeal
pad. Six Dromaeosauripus trackways from site II comprise at least two,
and possibly three, turning trackways in which the track maker(s)
turned without slowing down. None of the Dromaeosauripus trackways are
parallel or closely spaced, suggesting that they were made by solitary
track makers. Estimates of dromaeopodid track-maker sizes are between
61–300 cm, well within the size range established by body fossils of
both dromaeosaurids and troodontids.