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[dinosaur] Sauropod teeth from high latitude Yakutia, Siberia, Russia




Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com

A new paper:

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Alexander O. Averianov, Pavel P. Skutschas, Rico Schellhorn, Alexey V. Lopatin, Petr N. Kolosov, Veniamin V. Kolchanov, Dmitry D. Vitenko, Dmitry V. Grigoriev Â& Thomas Martin (2019)
The northernmost sauropod record in the Northern Hemisphere.
Lethaia (advance online publication)
doi: Âhttps://doi.org/10.1111/let.12362
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/let.12362


Isolated sauropod teeth from the Early Cretaceous Teete locality in Yakutia (Eastern Siberia, Russia) are the only evidence that sauropods lived in high latitudes (palaeolatitude estimate of N 62Â) in the Northern Hemisphere. The spatulate broad tooth crowns of adult individuals lack marginal denticles while these are present in a juvenile tooth. The teeth have overlapping facets and likely belong to a basal macronarian. The juvenile tooth indicates that sauropods reproduced in high latitudes and possibly stayed there around the year. The Teete vertebrate assemblage comprises both endothermic, or presumably endothermic tetrapods (theropod dinosaurs, tritylodontids and mammals), and ectothermic tetrapods (salamanders, turtles, choristoderes and lizards), but no crocodyliforms. This suggests a temperate climate, with an annual mean temperature well above freezing level but below 14ÂC.