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Australian paleontologists have discovered fossil fragments of a new genus and a new species of ornithopod dinosaur that roamed the Earth during the early Cretaceous period.
Galleonosaurus dorisae. Image credit: James Kuether.
The new dinosaur belongs to Ornithopoda (ornithopods), a large group of herbivorous dinosaurs with hips of birds.
Double Galleonosaurus dorisaeit inhabited the fault between Australia and Antarctica about 125 million years ago (Cretaceous period).
Five fossilized upper jaws of the ancient beast were discovered at the Flat Rocks locality of the Wonthaggi Formation in an area of Gippsland, Victoria, Australia.
"Galleonosaurus is the fifth small ornithopod genus in Victoria, "said Dr. Matthew Herne, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New England.
"The discovery confirms that on a global scale, the diversity of these small body dinosaurs had been unusually high in the former Rift Valley that once stretched between the expanding continents of Australia and Antarctica. "
"Small ornithopods appear to be grown on the vast floodplain forested of the former Rift Valley."
Specimens of Galleonosaurus dorisae Sandstone in the upper Barremian, Wonthaggi Formation, Gippsland Basin, Southeastern Australia. Scale bars – 10 mm (1-6); 1 mm (7). Image credit: Herne et al, doi: 10.1017 / jpa.2018.95.
Galleonosaurus dorisae is a close relative of Diluvicursor Pickeringi, another small ornithopod named by Dr. Herne and his co-authors in 2018, from excavations along the Otway coast west of the Gippsland region.
"Interestingly, the jaws of the new species and the partial skeleton of Diluvicursor Pickeringi were also buried in volcanic sediments on the soil of deep and mighty rivers, "said Dr. Herne.
"However, Galleonosaurus dorisae is about 12 million years older than Diluvicursor Pickeringi, which shows that the evolutionary history of dinosaurs in the Austro-Antarctic fault has been long. "
Before the discovery of Galleonosaurus dorisae, the only other known ornithopod in the Gippsland area was Qantassaurus intrepidus, appointed in 1999.
"However, Qantassaurus intrepidus had a shorter muzzle stronger than that of Galleonosaurus dorisae"Said Dr. Herne.
"We consider that these two dinosaurs of similar size feed on different types of plants, which would have allowed them to coexist."
The researchers also found that Victoria's ornithopods were closely related to those of Patagonia in Argentina.
"We regularly build an image of terrestrial dinosaur exchange between the evolving Gondwanan continents of Australia, South America and Antarctica during the Cretaceous period," said Dr. Herne.
The study was published in the Journal of Paleontology.
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Matthew C. Herne et al. New small ornithopods (Dinosauria, Neornithischia) of the Lower Cretaceous Wonthaggi Formation (Strzelecki Group) of the Austro-Antarctic Rift System, with revision of Qantassaurus intrepidus Rich and Vickers-Rich, 1999. Journal of Paleontology, published online March 11, 2019; doi: 10.1017 / jpa.2018.95
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