Dinosaur, bird and pterosaur footprints from the Lower Cretaceous of Wuerhe asphaltite area, Xinjiang, China, with notes on overlapping track relationships

Xing, Lida; Lockley, Martin G.; Klein, Hendrik; Zhang, Jianping; He, Qing; Divay, Julien D.; Qi, Li-Qi; Jia, Chengkai

doi:10.1016/j.palwor.2013.03.001

Cited by 25 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The number of known pterosaur tracksite reports from China has increased substantially in recent years. It compares favorably with the growing record from Korea and Japan, and adds significantly to the record from East Asia, such as Jimo, Shandong Province [ 90 ], Lotus, Chongqing Municipality [ 6 ], Xinjiang [ 91 – 92 ], Zhaojue, Sichuan Province [ 9 ], and Yanguoxia, Gansu Province [ 93 ].…”

Section: Pterosaur Tracksmentioning

confidence: 93%

An Ornithopod-Dominated Tracksite from the Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation (Barremian–Albian) of Qijiang, South-Central China: New Discoveries, Ichnotaxonomy, Preservation and Palaeoecology

et al. 2015

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The historically-famous Lotus Fortress site, a deep 1.5–3.0-meter-high, 200-meter-long horizonal notch high up in near-vertical sandstone cliffs comprising the Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation, has been known since the 13th Century as an impregnable defensive position. The site is also extraordinary for having multiple tetrapod track-bearing levels, of which the lower two form the floor of part of the notch, and yield very well preserved asseamblages of ornithopod, bird (avian theropod) and pterosaur tracks. Trackway counts indicate that ornithopods dominate (69%) accounting for at least 165 trackmakers, followed by bird (18%), sauropod (10%), and pterosaur (3%). Previous studies designated Lotus Fortress as the type locality of Caririchnium lotus and Wupus agilis both of which are recognized here as valid ichnotaxa. On the basis of multiple parallel trackways both are interpreted as representing the trackways of gregarious species. C. lotus is redescribed here in detail and interpreted to indicate two age cohorts representing subadults that were sometimes bipedal and larger quadrupedal adults. Two other previously described dinosaurian ichnospecies, are here reinterpreted as underprints and considered nomina dubia. Like a growing number of significant tetrapod tracksites in China the Lotus Fortress site reveals new information about the composition of tetrapod faunas from formations in which the skeletal record is sparse. In particular, the site shows the relatively high abundance of Caririchium in a region where saurischian ichnofaunas are often dominant. It is also the only site known to have yielded Wupus agilis. In combination with information from other tracksites from the Jiaguan formation and other Cretaceous formations in the region, the track record is proving increasingly impotant as a major source of information on the vertebrate faunas of the region. The Lotus Fortress site has been developed as a spectacular, geologically-, paleontologically- and a culturally-significant destination within Qijiang National Geological Park.

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Section: Pterosaur Tracksmentioning

confidence: 93%

An Ornithopod-Dominated Tracksite from the Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation (Barremian–Albian) of Qijiang, South-Central China: New Discoveries, Ichnotaxonomy, Preservation and Palaeoecology

et al. 2015

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“…This is first record of Deltapodus from the Cretaceous of China (Xing et al ., ). The second, the Asphaltite site also yields non‐avian and avian theropod tracks together with pterosaur tracks (He et al ., ; Xing et al ., ). The area has huge potential for more tracksite discoveries.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Tracking Lower Cretaceous Dinosaurs in China: a new database for comparison with ichnofaunal data from Korea, the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia

Lockley

Xing

Kim

et al. 2014

Biol J Linn Soc Lond

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Following the recent rapid increase in the reports of tetrapod tracksites in the Cretaceous, especially from the Lower Cretaceous, of China and other parts of East Asia, notably South Korea, a review of the ichnofaunal database from these regions is presented as the basis for comparisons with other Lower Cretaceous ichnofaunas that are abundant and reasonably well documented. These areas include parts of North and South America, especially the western USA, and parts of Europe, including the United Kingdom, Northern Germany, Spain, Italy and Croatia. The Chinese database presently includes about 70 Cretaceous sites, the majority of which are Early Cretaceous in age. Although abundant data are available from many regions, much of it has yet to be synthesized in detail or in standard formats. Moreover, ichnotaxonomy may be variable (provincial) between different regions. Thus, while comprehensive lists of sites are available for some regions (China and South America), in other regions such as South Korea and the western USA data have been compiled primarily on a formation by formation basis. The record for Europe is moderately good, but scattered in the primary literature and in need of further synthesis. The record for Australia and Africa is sparse and also in need of synthesis. The most notable regional differences between ichnofaunas appears to be in the relative abundance of distinctive bird and pterosaur track ichnotaxa in China and Korea in comparison with their scarcity or absence in other regions. The distinctive ichnogenus Minisauripus is also known only in China and Korea as are the majority of known dromaeosaurid track occurrences. Ornithopod‐dominated and ornithopod‐rich ichnofaunas are widespread and particularly abundant in the late Early Cretaceous Barremian to Albian, of some regions. Most well documented Early Cretaceous ichnofaunas are associated with siliciclastic facies and evidently differ from those associated with carbonate facies. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2014, 113, 770–789.

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“…In places, there are gray shale zones and thin yellow shale intervals. Tetrapod tracks occur at many levels and are particularly abundant at the main tracksite [8]: see Xing et al [12,13,15] and references therein. The pterosaur tracksite occurs about 20 m above the main track level, where a localized sandstone unit is intercalated in a predominantly shale sequence.…”

Section: Geological Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, considerable gaps in the fossil record of Chinese pterosaurs have begun to be filled by the discovery of numerous pterosaur tracksites. These sites include: Yanguoxia in Gansu [7,8], Dongyang in Zhejiang [9,10], Jimo in Shandong [11], Qijiang in Chongqing [12], Urho in Xinjiang [13,14], and Zhaojue in Sichuan [15]. Both manus and pes tracks are present at all of the aforementioned tracksites usually in recognizable pairs and often in well-defined trackways.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A manus dominated pterosaur track assemblage from Gansu, China: implications for behavior

Xing

Lockley

et al. 2015

Science Bulletin

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Dinosaur, bird and pterosaur footprints from the Lower Cretaceous of Wuerhe asphaltite area, Xinjiang, China, with notes on overlapping track relationships

Cited by 25 publications

References 16 publications

An Ornithopod-Dominated Tracksite from the Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation (Barremian–Albian) of Qijiang, South-Central China: New Discoveries, Ichnotaxonomy, Preservation and Palaeoecology

An Ornithopod-Dominated Tracksite from the Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation (Barremian–Albian) of Qijiang, South-Central China: New Discoveries, Ichnotaxonomy, Preservation and Palaeoecology

Tracking Lower Cretaceous Dinosaurs in China: a new database for comparison with ichnofaunal data from Korea, the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia

A manus dominated pterosaur track assemblage from Gansu, China: implications for behavior

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