Late Jurassic theropod dinosaur bones from the Langenberg Quarry (Lower Saxony, Germany) provide evidence for several theropod lineages in the central European archipelago

Abstract

Marine limestones and marls in the Langenberg Quarry provide unique insights into a Late Jurassic island ecosystem in central Europe. The beds yield a varied assemblage of terrestrial vertebrates including extremely rare bones of theropod from theropod dinosaurs, which we describe here for the first time. All of the theropod bones belong to relatively small individuals but represent a wide taxonomic range. The material comprises an allosauroid small pedal ungual and pedal phalanx, a ceratosaurian anterior chevron, a left fibula of a megalosauroid, and a distal caudal vertebra of a tetanuran. Additionally, a small pedal phalanx III-1 and the proximal part of a small right fibula can be assigned to indeterminate theropods. The ontogenetic stages of the material are currently unknown, although the assignment of some of the bones to juvenile individuals is plausible. The finds confirm the presence of several taxa of theropod dinosaurs in the archipelago and add to our growing understanding of theropod diversity and evolution during the Late Jurassic of Europe.

A reevaluation of the Late Jurassic dinosaur tracksite Barkhausen (Wiehengebirge, Northern Germany)

“…11; Meyer et al 2006;Meyer 2011;Razzolini et al 2017) and most likely also with Gondwana (Belvedere et al 2019) during sea level low stands. Furthermore, we note a similar widespread occurrence of the ichnotaxon Megalosauripus transjuranicus (Razzolini et al 2017) representing a medium-sized theropod and the presence of isolated bones attributable to megalosauroids, tetanurans, ceratosaurians, and allosauroids from the Langenberg quarry (Evers and Wings 2020). Gerke and Wings (2016) suggested a faunal exchange via land-connections in the Late Jurassic between Germany, Portugal, and North America because of the similarity of the Northern German theropods.…”

They call me the wanderer – Neurovascular anatomy of dwarfed dinosaur implies precociality in sauropods

“…Torvosaurus , and probably Ceratosauria (see 39,40,41 ). Non-dinosaurian terrestrial vertebrates include several 3D-preserved remains of pterosaurs, a paramacellodid lizard, and a new genus of atoposaurid crocodilians 42 . Microvertebrate remains recovered by screen-washing are dominated by teeth of fish and crocodyliforms but also included an astonishing range of mammal teeth 43,44,45,46 .…”

Paleontology-themed comics and graphic novels, their potential for scientific outreach, and the bilingual graphic novel EUROPASAURUS – Life on Jurassic Islands

“…The Europasaurus Project researches one of the most important Mesozoic sites for fossil vertebrates in Europe-the Langenberg Quarry at the northern rim of the Harz Mountains near Goslar in Lower Saxony, Germany. The peculiarity of this site is the inclusion of fossils of terrestrial vertebrates such as lizards (Richter et al, 2013), crocodylomorphs (Schwarz et al, 2017), pterosaurs (Fastnacht, 2005), the dwarf sauropod dinosaur Europasaurus holgeri Sander et al, 2006 (Carballido andSander, 2014;Marpmann et al, 2015;Carballido et al 2020), and theropod dinosaurs (Lallensack et al, 2015;Gerke and Wings, 2016;Evers and Wings, 2020), which are limited to a few layers next to commonly occurring marine fossils (Wings and Sander, 2012). The vertebrate remains were transported into the shallow marine depositional environment during the Kimmeridgian (Late Jurassic, about 154 million years ago; Zuo et al, 2018).…”