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A fossil braincase and partial skull roofing from Carnegie Museum of Natural History has actually been reassessed and reclassified, triggering a brand-new genus and types of dicraeosaurid sauropod dinosaur: Athenar bermani
Holotypic braincase of Athenar bermaniImage credit: Whitlock et aldoi: 10.26879/ 1550.
Athenar bermani resided in what is now Utah, the United States, throughout the Late Jurassic, 151 to 150 million years back.
The dinosaur’s remains, designated as the Carnegie Museum(CM )specimen 26552, were initially gathered in 1913 in rocks coming from the Morrison Formation in Carnegie Quarry at Dinosaur National Monument.
Previously, the specimen was designated to a genus of sauropod dinosaurs called Diplodocus
“Carnegie Museum of Natural History houses a few of the most essential specimens for our understanding of diplodocoid sauropod cranial anatomy,” stated Dr. John Whitlock, a scientist at Mount Aloysius College and Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
“One specimen, CM 26552, is typically ignored in favor of more total skulls, however bears an outsized historic value as this specimen formed the basis for the modern-day description of braincase anatomy for Diplodocus as a genus.”
“In light of a number of years of brand-new discoveries given that the initial description in 1978, we re-evaluate the anatomy and taxonomic relationships of this specimen.”
The brand-new analysis reveals that the functions of CM 26552 line up much better with a various group of sauropods: the Dicraeosauridae.
“CM 26552 shows a mosaic of characteristics that allow it to be with confidence separated from the other recognized North American dicraeosaurid types,” the paleontologists stated.
“Based on this, we appoint CM 26552 to the brand-new genus Athenar with the particular epithet bermani“
The research study likewise reveals that Athenar bermani is carefully associated to the dicraeosaurid genus Suuwassea
“Considering CM 26552 as a brand-new dicraeosaurid types improves the understanding of the variety of this household in the Morrison Formation and in North America more typically, broadening the traditionally ignored sauropod variety of the system,” the scientists stated.
The findings were released online this month in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica
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John A. Whitlock et al2025. Athenar bermania brand-new types of dicraeosaurid sauropod from Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, U.S.A. Palaeontologia Electronica 28 (3 ): a50; doi: 10.26879/ 1550
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