A New Family of Sauropod Dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Tianzhen, Shanxi Province, China

Abstract

A new gigantic sauropod, Huabeisaurus allocotus gen. et sp. nov., about 20 m in length and 5 m in height, was discovered in the Upper Cretaceous Huiquanpu Formation, Tianzhen County, Shanxi Province. It is notably different from Diplodocidae, Titanosauridae and Nemegtosauridae in the following aspects: the teeth are strong, peglike with a length ratio of the tooth crown to tooth root at about 3 to 1; the cervical vertebrae are long with forked spines; the spines in dorsal vertebrae are relatively high, unbifurcated; the caudal vertebrae are amphicoelous, with anterior neural spines and unbifurcated spines and chevrons; the femur is straight and long, narrow and flat and the tibia and fibula are long and flat. These characters show that the described genus should represent a new family, Huabeisauridae fam. nov. The discovery enriches the sauropod dinosaur record in China, and is quite significant to the study of the taxonomy, evolution, migration, extinction and palaeobiogeographic provincialism of the Late Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs.

New information on the Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs of Zhejiang Province, China: impact on Laurasian titanosauriform phylogeny and biogeography

“…[27,31,40,41,[48][49][50][51]). These include: (i) Daxiatitan binglingi [52]; (ii) Mongolosaurus haplodon [53]; (iii) Yongjinglong datangi [54]; (iv) an isolated caudal vertebra described by Upchurch & Mannion [55] and reinterpreted by Whitlock et al [49] (PMU 24709 [originally PMU R263]; see Poropat [56]); (v) Xianshanosaurus shijiagouensis [57]; (vi) Baotianmansaurus henanensis [58]; (vii) Huabeisaurus allocotus [59]; (viii) Jiangshanosaurus lixianensis [60] and (ix) Dongyangosaurus sinensis [61]. Thus, resolving the phylogenetic placements of these Eurasian taxa is critical to understanding the timing and biogeography of the early radiation of Titanosauria.…”

A Basal Titanosauriform from the Early Cretaceous of Guangxi, China

“…Except for the distal half of the femur described in Gobititun, no girdle elements and proximal caudals and dorsal ribs are preserved in both Gobititun and Boreulosuurus, thus their comparison with Fusuisuurus is not possible. Fusuisuurus is similar to Huubeisuurus (Pang and Cheng, 2000) and Sonidosuurus suihungaobiensis (Xu et al, 2006) in several features. For example, they share the presence of an anteroventral process on the ilium, the pubic peduncle setting an acute angle with the ventral margin of the preacetabular blade, a relative narrow and long posterior process in lateral view, and the ventral margin of the ischiadic peduncles level with the chord across the anterior and posterior iliac spine.…”

“…Several other titanosauriforms have been recently discovered from the Cretaceous of China. These include Huabeisuurus from Shanxi (Pang and Cheng, 2000), Jiungshunosuurus lixiunensis (Tang et al, 2001) from Zhejiang, Gobititun shenzhouensis (You et al, 2003) from Gansu, Boreulosuurus wimani (You et al, 2004) from Liaoning and Sonidosuurus suihungaobiensis (Xu et al, 2006) from Nei Mongol. In Jiungshunosaurus, the proximal caudal centra are procoelous and the dorsal ribs are pneurnatized.…”

A new titanosauriform sauropod (Dinosauria: Saurischia) from the Lower Cretaceous of Hyogo, Japan

“…Tambatitanis is distinguished from all of the sauropods for which the neural spines of the anterior caudal vertebrae are known by its very unique morphology of the anterior neural spine. The following East Asian titanosauriforms that have amphicoelous or amphiplatyan caudal centra lack this unique morphology of the anterior neural spine: Dongyangosaurus (Lü et al 2008); Fusuisaurus (Mo et al 2006); Huabeisaurus (Pang and Cheng 2000); Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis (You et al 2006); "Huanghetitan" ruyangensis (Lü et al 2007); Phuwiangosaurus (Martin et al1999;Suteethorn et al 2009), and Yunmenglong (Lü et al 2013). A fragment of the neural spine of an anterior caudal is the only the caudal element known for Qingxiusaurus (Mo et al 2008), but the spine differs from that of Tambatitanis in being anteroposteriorly flat and transversely wide.…”