A new purported ankylosaur trackway in the Lower Cretaceous (lower Aptian) shallow-marine carbonate deposits of Puglia, southern Italy

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe Apulian marine carbonate Platform, an unusual environment for terrestrial animals, has revealed a diverse ichnological record, especially for dinosaurs. Members of most higher taxa are present, including sauropods, theropods, ankylosaurs and ornithopods. Recently, a small outcrop of Aptian age referred to the Calcare di Bari near Bisceglie (Bari) has yielded a new quadrupedal trackway that we attribute to Ankylosauria. This new find enhances the record of Cretaceous ankylosaur footprints from the Apulian carbonate Platform, previously known from another site near Bisceglie (early Aptian), from Borgo Celano (late Hauterivianeearly Barremian), and from Altamura (late Coniacianeearly Santonian).

Dinosaur tracks from the Early Cretaceous of Parede tracksite (Cascais, Portugal): New implications on the sauropod palaeobiology of the Iberian Peninsula

“…The kidney-shaped manus and the subtriangular pes morphologies have been described in other sauropod trackways that do not show digit impressions (Thulborn, 1990;Wright, 2005). The ankylosaur tracks described by Petti et al (2010) have kidney-shaped manus tracks, though clear digit impressions are discerned. The absence of digit impressions in sauropod manus tracks is not uncommon, even in well-preserved trackways where digit impressions have been preserved in pes prints (Marty, 2008;Santos et al, 2009;Marty et al, 2010;Castanera et al, , 2012).…”

“…Sacchi et al (2009) distinguished between sauropod and ankylosaur tracks from the Aptian of Italy on the basis of heteropody and footprint rotation. Thus, according to the interpretation of these authors and of McCrea et al (2001) and Petti et al (2010), ankylosaur tracks have low heteropody and lower footprint rotation than the great majority of sauropod trackways (Thulborn, 1990;Wright, 2005).…”

“…Despite the fact that some ankylosaur trackways are also narrow-gauge (Petti et al, 2010), these trackways, with intermediate to high heteropody, have been described from elsewhere and assigned to sauropod ichnotaxa like Parabrontopodus and Breviparopus Marty et al, 2010). In fact, Moratalla (2009) described narrow-gauge sauropod trackways in the lower Aptian (Enciso, Spain) from the Iberian Peninsula.…”

“…The morphology of rebbachisaurid tracks so far is not well understood. Apesteguía et al (2010) associated sauropod tracks from Cenomanian-Turonian beds of the Candeleros Formation in Northern Patagonia (Argentina) to these dinosaurs, on the basis of low heteropody due to the presence of osteologiet al, 2001) but also in Europe (see Petti et al, 2010;Hornung and Reich, 2014 and references therein). As concerns ankylosaur tracks morphology, the manus presents five digits arranged in a semicircular or radiating pattern and pes with four digits and a wide and elongated heel (Thulborn, 1990;McCrea et al, 2001;Petti et al, 2010).…”

“…Apesteguía et al (2010) associated sauropod tracks from Cenomanian-Turonian beds of the Candeleros Formation in Northern Patagonia (Argentina) to these dinosaurs, on the basis of low heteropody due to the presence of osteologiet al, 2001) but also in Europe (see Petti et al, 2010;Hornung and Reich, 2014 and references therein). As concerns ankylosaur tracks morphology, the manus presents five digits arranged in a semicircular or radiating pattern and pes with four digits and a wide and elongated heel (Thulborn, 1990;McCrea et al, 2001;Petti et al, 2010). Other quadrupedal dinosaurs like stegosaurs (Galton and Upchurch, 2004) or ceratopsians have not been described yet (neither by osteological or ichnological remains) from the Aptian-Turonian of Europe, so we assume that these dinosaurs are not candidates to be the trackmakers of Parede.…”