Large-bodied ornithomimosaurs inhabited Appalachia during the Late Cretaceous of North America.

ABSTRACT: Reconstructing the evolution, diversity, and paleobiogeography of North America's Late Cretaceous dinosaur assemblages require spatiotemporally contiguous data; however, there remains a spatial and temporal disparity in dinosaur data on the continent. The rarity of vertebrate-bearing sedimentary deposits representing Turonian-Santonian ecosystems, and the relatively sparse record of dinosaurs from the eastern portion of the continent, present persistent challenges for studies of North American dinosaur evolution. Here we describe an assemblage of ornithomimosaurian materials from the Santonian Eutaw Formation of Mississippi. Morphological data coupled with osteohistological growth markers suggest the presence of two taxa of different body sizes, including one of the largest ornithomimosaur

SUBMITTER: Tsogtbaatar C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9581415 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature