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. 2021 Aug 25;8(8):210127.
doi: 10.1098/rsos.210127. eCollection 2021 Aug.

Dinosaurs from the Santonian-Campanian Atlantic coastline substantiate phylogenetic signatures of vicariance in Cretaceous North America

Affiliations

Dinosaurs from the Santonian-Campanian Atlantic coastline substantiate phylogenetic signatures of vicariance in Cretaceous North America

Chase Doran Brownstein. R Soc Open Sci. .

Abstract

During the Cretaceous, diversifications and turnovers affected terrestrial vertebrates experiencing the effects of global geographical change. However, the poor fossil record from the early Late Cretaceous has concealed how dinosaurs and other terrestrial vertebrates responded to these events. I describe two dinosaurs from the Santonian to Early Campanian of the obscure North American paleolandmass Appalachia. A revised look at a large, potentially novel theropod shows that it likely belongs to a new clade of tyrannosauroids solely from Appalachia. Another partial skeleton belongs to an early member of the Hadrosauridae, a highly successful clade of herbivorous dinosaurs. This skeleton is associated with the first small juvenile dinosaur specimens from the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The tyrannosauroid and hadrosaurid substantiate one of the only Late Santonian dinosaur faunas and help pinpoint the timing of important anatomical innovations in two widespread dinosaur lineages. The phylogenetic positions of the tyrannosauroid and hadrosaurid show Santonian Appalachian dinosaur faunas are comparable to coeval Eurasian ones, and the presence of clades formed only by Appalachian dinosaur taxa establishes a degree of endemism in Appalachian dinosaur assemblages attributable to episodes of vicariance.

Keywords: biogeography; dinosaurs; diversification; paleontology; phylogenetics; vicariance.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Geographic setting of the Merchantville dinosaur fauna. (a) Map of North American during the Campanian Stage of the Late Cretaceous (by R. Blakey, used with permission), showing the location of New Jersey and Delaware. (b) Map of New Jersey and Delaware showing the locations from which the described specimens were recovered. (c) Diagram showing preserved bones (in white) and relative sizes of (from left to right) YPM VPPU.021795 and the Merchantville hadrosaurid (adult, juvenile).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Anatomy of YPM VPPU.021795. Metatarsus in (a) dorsal, (b) medial, (c) lateral (metatarsal IV only), (d) ventral (metatarsal IV only), (e) proximal and (f) distal (metatarsal IV only) views. Caudal vertebra in (g) lateral and (h) dorsal views. Courtesy of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; peabody.yale.edu.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Distinguishing features of dryptosaurids. Metatarsals IV of YPM VPPU.021795 (a,c,e,g,i) and Dryptosaurus aquilunguis (b,d,f,h,j) in lateral (a,b), dorsal (c,d), medial (e,f) and proximal (g,h) views, with detailed photographs of the distal end of the metatarsals IV in medial (i,j) views. Courtesy of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; peabody.yale.edu.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Cranial material of the Merchantville hadrosaurid material AMNH 7626 and fragments included in YPM VPPU.021813. Dentary AMNH 7626 in lateral (a) and medial (b) views. (c) Partial jugal included in YPM VPPU.021813 in lateral view. Quadrate included in YPM VPPU.021813 in (d) lateral, (e) proximal and (f) medial views. Courtesy of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; peabody.yale.edu.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Shoulder girdle of YPM VPPU.021813 (adult). Right scapula in (a) lateral and (b) medial views. Proximal left scapula in (c) lateral and (d) medial views. Left and right coracoids in (e,f) lateral and (g,h) medial views. Courtesy of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; peabody.yale.edu.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Hindlimb material of YPM VPPU.021813. Left femur in (a) ventral, (b) dorsal, (c) medial, (d) lateral, and (e) proximal views, with a detailed photograph of muscle attachment surfaces near the fourth trochanter (f). Fragmentary femur in YPM VPPU.021824 (g). Courtesy of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; peabody.yale.edu.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Femoral constriction in hadrosauromorphs. The y-axis indicates the ratio between the depth of the glenoid process and the total depth of the anterior scapula. Blue bars denote lambeosaurines, green denote basal hadrosaurids, red denote saurolophines, yellow denote hadrosauromorphs, and black denotes the Merchantville hadrosaurid YPM VPPU.021813.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
Anatomy of Ornithotarsus immanis. Tibia of YPM 3221 in (a) ventral view. Courtesy of the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology; Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; peabody.yale.edu.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Spatio-temporal origins of latest Cretaceous dinosaur assemblages. (a) Time-calibrated phylogeny of tyrannosauroid dinosaurs showing the metatarsus conditions in Dryptosauridae and Tyrannosauridae. (b) Time-calibrated phylogeny of hadrosauromorph dinosaurs. Maps of Earth during the Early Campanian (approx. 80 Ma) (by R. Blakey, used with permission) showing the location of important Santonian eutyrannosaurian (c) and hadrosaurid (d) sites.

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