Saturday, December 7, 2019

[Paleontology • 2020] Additional Skulls of Talarurus plicatospineus (Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae) and Implications for Paleobiogeography and Paleoecology of Armored Dinosaurs


Talarurus plicatospineus Maleev, 1952

in Park, Lee, Currie, ... et Kim, 2020. 
Illustration: Jed Taylor facebook.com: JCT Art Studio

Highlights: 
• Three new specimens of Talarurus provide new anatomical information about this taxon.
• A dispersal event of ankylosaurines from Asia to western North America occurred before the Cenomanian.
• Differences of muzzle shape between Talarurus and Tsagantegia suggest a possible niche partitioning among these taxa.

Abstract
Three new additional skull specimens of Talarurus plicatospineus have been recovered from the Upper Cretaceous (Cenomanian–Santonian) Bayanshiree Formation, of Bayan Shiree cliffs, eastern Gobi Desert, Mongolia. The skulls feature unique characters such as an anteriorly protruded single internarial caputegulum, around 20 flat or concave nasal-area caputegulae surrounded by a wide sulcus, a vertically oriented elongate loreal caputegulum with a pitted surface, an elongate lacrimal caputegulum positioned above the posterodorsal border of the maxilla, two longitudinally arranged large frontoparietal caputegulae surrounded by smaller rhomboid caputegulae, small but elongate medial supraorbital caputegulae, a posterior supraorbital caputegulum that is four times larger than the anterior one, up to three transverse parallel grooves on the dorsal surface of the posterior supraorbital caputegulum, postocular caputegulae along the ventral to posterior rim of the orbit that extend almost to the anteroventral margin of the squamosal horn, a longitudinal furrow tapering towards the apex of the squamosal horn, a lateral nuchal caputegulum four to five times larger than other nuchal caputegulae, and a pterygovomerine keel with a ventral margin that is dorsally positioned to the alveolar ridge. The phylogenetic analysis result showed that Talarurus is sister to the clade that includes the derived Asian ankylosaurines (Saichania chulsanensis, Tarchia kielanae, and Zaraapelta nomadis). It also shows that there was dispersal of ankylosaurines from Asia into western North America before the Cenomanian. Moreover, the rostral differences between Talarurus and Tsagantegia, another ankylosaur from the same formation, suggest possible niche partitioning between these taxa.

Keywords: Dinosauria, Ankylosauridae, Ankylosauinae, Talarurus plicatospineus, Bayanshiree Formation, paleobiogeography

 Photographs of new skull specimens of Talarurus plicatospineus in left lateral view. 
(A) MPC-D 100/1354. (B) MPC-D 100/1355. (C) MPC-D 100/1356.
Skull reconstruction of Talarurus plicatospineus


a hypothesized illustration for the different feeding heights between Tsagantegia longicranialis and Talarurus plicatospineus.
Illustration: Jed Taylor facebook.com: JCT Art Studio


 Jin-Young Park, Yuong-Nam Lee, Philip J. Currie, Yoshitsugu Kobayashi, Eva Koppelhus, Rinchen Barsbold, Octávio Mateus, Sungjin Lee and Su-Hwan Kim. 2020. Additional Skulls of Talarurus plicatospineus (Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae) and Implications for Paleobiogeography and Paleoecology of Armored Dinosaurs. Cretaceous Research. In Press. DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2019.104340  

  

새 논문이 나왔습니다! 몽골의 갑옷공룡 탈라루루스(Talarurus)의 머리가 67년 만에 (거의) 완벽하게 복원됐습니다. 용처럼 생겼지만 초식공룡입니다.