Dinosaurs from the Santonian-Campanian Atlantic coastline substantiate phylogenetic signatures of vicariance in Cretaceous North America.

ABSTRACT: During the Cretaceous, diversifications and turnovers affected terrestrial vertebrates experiencing the effects of global geographical change. However, the poor fossil record from the early Late Cretaceous has concealed how dinosaurs and other terrestrial vertebrates responded to these events. I describe two dinosaurs from the Santonian to Early Campanian of the obscure North American paleolandmass Appalachia. A revised look at a large, potentially novel theropod shows that it likely belongs to a new clade of tyrannosauroids solely from Appalachia. Another partial skeleton belongs to an early member of the Hadrosauridae, a highly successful clade of herbivorous dinosaurs. This skeleton is associated with the first small juvenile dinosaur specimens from the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The tyran

SUBMITTER: Doran Brownstein C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8385347 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature