Paleontologists have actually included another types to the Cretaceous-period dinosaur animals of Europe, and this one was discovered in Normandy, France.

Caletodraco cottardi resided in what is now France durign the Cenomanian age of the Early Cretaceous date, some 100 million years earlier.

The ancient types belonged to Furileusauria, a subgroup of obtained abelisaurid dinosaurs (medium- to large-sized bipedal predators that were primary in the meat-eating animals throughout the Late Cretaceous of the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana) formerly understood just from South America.

“When the household Abelisauridae was put up in 1985, it consisted of the single types Abelisaurus comahuensisa big meat-eating dinosaur from the Campanian of Patagonia,” stated Dr. Eric Buffetaut from PSL Research University and his coworkers.

“It has actually given that emerged that the Abelisauridae in fact make up a significant radiation of neoceratosaurian theropods that played a vital part in the Cretaceous continental environments of South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar.”

“Although the Abelisauridae have a generally Gondwanan circulation, an abelisaurid was reported from the Late Cretaceous of southern France as early as 1988, and they are now understood from Cretaceous regions in numerous European nations, consisting of France, Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands.”

2 blocks consisting of the fossilized bones and teeth of Caletodraco cottardi were uncovered the paleotnologist Nicolas Cottard at the foot of the sea cliffs at Saint-Jouin-Bruneval on the coast of the Pays de Caux, in the department of Seine-Maritime, Normandy, north-western France.

“The glauconitic chalk of the Pays de Caux is a marine deposit, as suggested in today case by a shark tooth present in the matrix, near among the bones in the anterior block,” the paleontologists stated.

“The nearby acreage– where the dinosaur explained listed below most likely lived– need to have been the Armorican Massif, about 100 km to the south-west.”

“The dinosaur specimen should in some way have actually been performed to sea, potentially by a stream, after which it needs to have drifted over a relatively far away till it sank to the bottom.”

“Occurrences of dinosaur remains in marine deposits are rather regular, although this appears to be the very first record from the Late Cretaceous Chalk of the Pays de Caux, where the only reasonably typical vertebrate fossils are fish teeth.”

The existence of the furileusaurian abelisaurid Caletodraco cottardi in the Cenomanian of Normandy recommends that the history of the Abelisauridae in Europe was more complicated than previosuly believed.

“The discovery of Caletodraco cottardi programs that dinosaur stays, although extremely unusual, do take place in the Chalk of the Anglo-Paris basin which a cautious look for fossil vertebrates in these marine developments can yield unexpected and essential outcomes,” the scientists stated.

“The brand-new types results in a reassessment of the fossil record of abelisaurids in Europe, revealing that, contrary to what might formerly be presumed, majungasaurines were not the only abelisaurid subgroup present because geographical location, considering that Caletodraco cottardi obviously comes from the Furileusauria, an extremely obtained clade of Abelisauridae.”

Caletodraco cottardi is among the earliest recognized Furileusauria and its incident in Europe results in reevaluate the biogeographical history of this group of theropods, hitherto understood from South America.”

A paper on the findings was released online in the journal Fossil Studies

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Eric Buffetaut et al2024. Caletodraco cottardi: A New Furileusaurian Abelisaurid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Cenomanian Chalk of Normandy (North-Western France). Foss. Stud 2 (3 ): 177-195; doi: 10.3390/ fossils2030009