First rebbachisaurid dinosaur (Sauropoda, Diplodocoidea) from the early Cretaceous of Spain : palaeobiogeographical implications

Abstract

Sauropod remains from the early Cretaceous (late Barremian–early Aptian) of Salas de los Infantes (Burgos, Spain) are described. The material consists of several caudal vertebrae, chevrons, a pair of ischia and a femur that is presumed to belong to a single medium-sized individual. Based on the tall neural arches and broad neural spines of the anterior caudal vertebrae, the specimen is referred to the Diplodocoidea. Moreover, it shows affinities with the Rebbachisauridae, a basal clade of diplodocoids. Both the caudal vertebrae and ischium of the Burgos sauropod are similar in form to those of ‘Rebbachisaurus’ tessonei from the Albian-Cenomanian of South America. However, there are some differences with regard to this taxon, so the Burgos sauropod is provisionally referred to as Rebbachisauridae in-det. Rebbachisaurids are known in the Aptian-Cenomanian of the western Gondwanan landmasses (Africa and South America), although further remains have been reported from the Coniacian-Santonian of Argentina and the Hauteri-vian–Barremian of Croatia. The Burgos diplodocoid appears to be one of the earliest representative of the Rebbachisau-ridae. This discovery supports previous evidence of a land connection between Europe and Africa across the Tethys seaway sometime in the early Cretaceous.

La Cantalera: an exceptional window onto the vertebrate biodiversity of the Hauterivian-Barremian transition in the Iberian Peninsula

“…In exceptional cases reasonably complete specimens have been recovered, making it possible to describe new taxa (Pérez-Moreno et al, 1994;Canudo et al, 2008b). These spectacular discoveries provide us with valuable systematic and palaeobiogeographical information (Pereda-Suberbiola et al, 2003;Canudo et al, 2009), yet in terms of learning about the palaeobiodiversity of the ecosystems they only yield sporadic data. Of greater interest in this respect are sites with an accumulation of different taxa with little transportation of the fossils, which can give us a rough idea of the minimal biodiversity of the vertebrates that lived in the ecosystem where the site or its environment was formed.…”

A new sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Tunisia with extreme avian-like pneumatization

“…C retaceous dinosaurs of the peri-Mediterranean regions are the subject of an increasing number of studies focusing on some of the most important and debated topics in vertebrate palaeontology, inter alia Cretaceous biogeography and insular faunas, biodiversity, timing of radiation of groups and phylogenetic relationships among Gondwanan dinosaur clades with respect to their European counterparts [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] . In addition, Mediterranean dinosaur remains, particularly northern African specimens, are important for understanding some of the most extreme Cretaceous ecosystems.…”

New record of a sauropod in the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition of the Iberian Peninsular (Spain): palaeobiogeographical implications

“…The great development of the fourth trochanter separates it from taxa such as Limaysaurus (Salgado et al 2004) or the rebbachisaurid from Salas de los Infantes (Pereda-Suberbiola et al 2003), where the fourth trochanter shows very little development. The other possibility is that the Tera femur might belong to a derived diplodocimorph.…”

“…The femur from Tera is slightly curved in anteroposterior view, although this tends to be straight in sauropods. However, there are exceptions such as the basal neosauropod Haplocanthosaurus priscus Hatcher 1903 and the rebbachisaurid from Salas de los Infantes (Pereda- Suberbiola et al 2003).…”