Yunmenglong, new sauropod from Early Cretaceous of China

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com


A new online paper with a new sauropod Yunmenglong:



Junchang Lü, Li Xu, Hanyong Pu, Xingliao Zhang, Yiyang Zhang, Songhai
Jia, Huali Chang, Jiming Zhang & Xuefang Wei (2013)
A new sauropod dinosaur (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the late Early
Cretaceous of the Ruyang Basin (central China).
Cretaceous Research (advance online publication)
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2013.04.009
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195667113000839


A new long-necked sauropod dinosaur, Yunmenglong ruyangensis gen. et
sp. nov., is erected on the basis of an incomplete skeleton from the
late Early Cretaceous Haoling Formation of the Ruyang Basin, Henan
Province. The characters of the anterior cervical vertebrae, the shape
of the neural canal of the dorsal vertebra and the ball-shaped distal
end of the neural spine of caudal vertebrae with coarse surfaces
differ from other long-necked sauropod dinosaurs. The new genus has
characters in common with both Euhelopus and Erketu; it represents the
first long-necked sauropod dinosaur recorded from central China to
date. The rod-like, well-developed epipophyses and the pleurocoels on
the cervical vertebrae indicate that it may be close to Euhelopus, an
observation also confirmed by a phylogenetic analysis, which shows
that Erketu, Yunmenglong and Qiaowanlong form a clade, and are more
derived than Euhelopus.