Aorun, new coelurosaur (Theropoda) from Jurassic of China (free pdf)

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com


A new taxon in an online paper. The pdf is open access.


Jonah N. Choiniere, James M. Clark, Catherine A. Forster, Mark A.
Norell, David A. Eberth, Gregory M. Erickson, Hongjun Chu & Xing Xu
(2013)
A juvenile specimen of a new coelurosaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from
the Middle–Late Jurassic Shishugou Formation of Xinjiang, People's
Republic of China.
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology (advance online publication)
DOI:10.1080/14772019.2013.781067
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772019.2013.781067#.UYPYobXvtcQ


We describe the anatomy of a new coelurosaurian theropod Aorun zhaoi
gen. et sp. nov., from the Middle–Late Jurassic of Xinjiang, China.
Histological analysis of the holotype and only known specimen shows
that the new taxon is represented by the skeleton of a juvenile
individual aged no more than one year. A phylogenetic analysis of
theropod relationships places Aorun as a basal member of the
Coelurosauria. Although the sole use of a sub-adult ontogenetic
exemplar is potentially problematic for phylogenetic reconstruction,
we show that the phylogenetic position of Aorun as a member of
Coelurosauria is robust to the exclusion of characters known to change
during theropod ontogeny. Aorun is the seventh theropod taxon, and
temporally oldest coelurosaur, known from the Shishugou Formation,
which has one of the most taxonomically diverse Jurassic
coelurosaurian theropod faunas in the world.


http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:5CC73577-9EB3-47AB-9983-1677B278EFFD