Sefapanosaurus – Another Piece in the Dinosaur Jigsaw Puzzle

Yet another example of a new genus of dinosaur found lurking in a museum collection, this time from South Africa.  Team members at Everything Dinosaur often state that one of the best places to find a new dinosaur species is not out in the field but by re-examining fossil material already within a museum’s collection.  New techniques have enabled palaeontologists to gain a much better understanding of known fossils, many of which might have been excavated and prepared decades earlier.

New South African Sauropodomorph

As the number of dinosaur discoveries grows, so scientists can use new fossil finds to compare and contrast already studied specimens, this can provide fresh insight and help to place a museum specimen into a wider context within the Dinosauria.

That’s exactly what happened in the case of the newly described sauropodomorph dinosaur named Sefapanosaurus zastronensis.   The team of South African and Argentinian palaeontologists who made this discovery, re-classified the fossils, which had been thought to represent another South African Sauropodomorph called Aardonyx (A. celestae).  Aardonyx had been named and described six years ago.

To read Everything Dinosaur’s article announcing the discovery of Aardonyx celestae: New Basal Sauropod Described.

Sefapanosaurus zastronensis

Researchers from South Africa’s University of Cape Town, the University of Witwatersrand, Museo de La Plata (Argentina) and Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio (also Argentina) have published a scientific paper about this new dinosaur in the Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society.  It is hoped that S. zastronensis will help palaeontologists to better understand the phylogenetic relationships between basal Sauropodomorpha and their spread and diversity during the Late Triassic/Early Jurassic.

A Reconstruction of Sefapanosaurus zastronensis

The bones shaded in grey represent actual fossil material.

Picture credit: University of Witwatersrand

At Least Four Individual Animals Represented

The fossils represent at least four individuals and consist of post cranial material (limb bones, foot bones and some vertebrae) and they were found back in the 1930s and resided in the collection of the Evolutionary Studies Institute (University of Witwatersrand).  The Evolutionary Studies Institute houses the largest fossil collection in Africa, there are over 30,000 catalogued plant fossils and approximately 6,000 fossils from the Karoo Basin, most of the fossils originate from Africa, but there are a number of important specimens from elsewhere in the world housed at the Institute.

The Sefapanosaurus fossils were excavated from the Upper Elliot Formation (Zastron locality), the strata in this area dates from the very end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Jurassic geological period.   The fossils are estimated to be around 200 million years old and they were located more than one hundred miles south of where the Aardonyx celestae fossils were found.

Studying the Ankle Bones

One of the most distinctive features of this dinosaur are the ankle bones (astragalus), they are shaped like a cross.  This unique autapomorphy (distinct anatomical feature), accounts for this dinosaur’s name.  The genus name comes from the word “sefapano” in the local Sesotho dialect, it means “cross”.  The species name honours the small agricultural town of Zastron, which is close to where the fossils were found.

The Incomplete Left Foot (Pes) showing the Ankle Bones (Proximal View)

Holotype fossil material (386) showing ankle bones.

Picture credit: University of Witwatersrand with additional annotation from Everything Dinosaur

Tall Ascending Process of the Astragalus

One of the unique morphologies found in the fossil bones is the tall ascending process of the astragalus (ankle bone).

Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan (University of Cape Town), one of the co-authors of the scientific paper stated:

“The discovery of Sefapanosaurus shows that there were several of these transitional early sauropodomorph dinosaurs roaming around southern Africa about 200 million years ago.”

A subsequent phylogenetic analysis of basal sauropods from South American and southern Africa places Sefapanosaurus within the group of sauropodomorphs more closely related to sauropods than to the genus Massopondylus (Sauropodiformes).

Filling a Gap in Sauropod Evolution

Argentinian palaeontologist and lead author, Dr Alejandro Otero, explained that Sefapanosaurus helps to fill in the gap between the earliest Sauropodomorphs and the gigantic sauropods that are so well known, dinosaurs such as Brontosaurus, Apatosaurus, and Brachiosaurus from the Late Jurassic.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a large range of sauropod models in the Mojo Fun range of figures.  To view the Mojo Fun range of prehistoric animal models: Mojo Fun Prehistoric Animal and Extinct.

“Sefapanosaurus constitutes a member of the growing list of transitional sauropodmorph dinosaurs from Argentina and South Africa that are increasingly telling us how they diversified.”

A Diverse Early Jurassic Biota

The discovery of Sefapanosaurus and other recent dinosaur fossil finds in the Southern Hemisphere reveals that the diversity of plant-eating dinosaurs in Africa and South America was remarkably high in the Early Jurassic, a time when these two continents were joined together as part of a single super-continent known as Gondwana.

A picture of the Right Scapula (shoulder blade)

Scale bar = 8cm

Picture credit: University of Witwatersrand

Scientists Study Nearly Complete Basilosaurus Fossil 

Egypt’s “Valley of the Whales” has proved to be a very happy hunting ground as a team of scientists announce the discovery of the most complete skeleton of the ancient whale known as Basilosaurus ever found.  The skeleton, believed to be around forty million years old, measures eighteen metres in length.  A second whale fossil has also been discovered in the body cavity of the leviathan, at this early stage, scientists are unsure whether these bones represent the last meal of the Basilosaurus or perhaps its unborn young.

A Giant Whale

The giant whale was the apex predator in the shallow sea, a remnant of the mighty Tethys Ocean, that once covered this part of the world during the Eocene Epoch.  Fossils of crustaceans and a number of fish species have also been discovered at the site.  In addition, the discovery of several large shark teeth indicate the Basilosaurus corpse may have been scavenged prior to its burial.

Researchers Carefully Excavating the Nearly Perfectly Articulated Basilosaurus Fossil

The remains of the skull are nearest the camera.

Picture credit: Egyptian Ministry of the Environment

Basilosaurus

Basilosaurus was an early type of toothed whale.  It is descended from a group of terrestrial carnivores, the Mesonychians.  Two species have been described to date and this specimen represents one of the largest found in the Fayum deposits south-west of Cairo.  The fossil material comes from one of the most important Cenozoic-aged fossil sites in the world, the Wadi Al-Hitan (Whale Valley), a region of the Western Desert of Egypt, which contains the remains of the earliest types of ancient whales (Archaeoceti), scientists are able to trace from these fossils the last stages of cetacean limb evolution, in which the hind limbs were eventually lost.

A World Heritage Site

Wadi Al-Hitan has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2005.  It provides a unique insight into an ecosystem dominated by shallow waters and mangrove swamps that existed  along the northern coast of Africa and into what is now, the Sahara Desert.

A Model of the Fearsome Marine Predator Basilosaurus

One of the ancient sea creatures featured in the Prehistoric Sealife Toob

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Basilosaurus Featured in a Documentary

Basilosaurus featured in the BBC television series “Walking with Beasts”, a follow up to the hugely successful 1999 “Walking with Dinosaurs”.  Episode Two was entitled “Whale Killer” and told the story of a female Basilosaurus as she struggles to find food and find somewhere safe to give birth.  As a result of this media exposure, Everything Dinosaur does receive requests for information about this early whale from time to time.

In terms of models, a Basilosaurus is featured in the “Prehistoric Sealife Toob” manufactured by Safari Ltd.  It is one of ten models in this model set.

To see the range of Safari Ltd models supplied by Everything Dinosaur, including the Prehistoric Sealife Toob: Wild Safari Prehistoric World Models.

To read Everything Dinosaur’s review of the Safari Ltd Prehistoric Sealife Toob: Prehistoric Sealife Toob Reviewed.

Basilosaurus Fossils

It is hoped that this new fossil discovery can help solve one of the enduring mysteries associated with Basilosaurus.  The very long and serpentine shape of Basilosaurus (the name means “King Reptile”), has presented anatomists and vertebrae palaeontologists with a bit of a puzzle.  The distal caudal vertebrae are compressed in a very similar way to those seen in animals with a tail fluke.  However, having the tail fluke at the very end of a long, sinuous tail (as in the model above), would have given this marine mammal quite an awkward and inefficient swimming action.

With a complete specimen of the tail bones to study, it is hoped that these fossils will provide more information on early cetacean locomotion.

A Close up of the Preserved Skull and Jaws of Basilosaurus

Basilosaurus skull excavation.

Picture credit: Egyptian Ministry of the Environment

A Model of a Basilosaurus (PNSO

The PNSO Age of Dinosaurs Basilosaurus model.

PNSO have a large Basilosaurus prehistoric whale model in their range: PNSO Prehistoric Animal Models and Figures.

Early Jurassic Dinosaur Goes on Display

The story broke this week of the discovery of a new species of meat-eating dinosaur after fossils found at Lavernock beach (near Penarth, South Wales), went on display at the National Museum of Wales.  Many of the news reports that carried this story heralded this important discovery and claimed that this new meat-eating dinosaur was a Welsh cousin of the famous Tyrannosaurus rex.  Whilst it is true, this lithe and agile theropod was indeed distantly related to T. rex it is important to stress the term “distantly” in this context.

The domestic cat is much more closely related to a tiger than this Welsh dinosaur was to the North American “King of the Tyrant Lizards”, at least a domestic cat and a tiger belong to the same taxonomic family (Felidae).

A New Early Jurassic Dinosaur has been Discovered

Significant dinosaur discovery.

Picture credit: National Museum of Wales/Bob Nicholls

The Theropoda

The theropods (Theropoda) are a suborder of dinosaurs, they are lizard-hipped and perhaps the most diverse and most specious of all the Dinosauria.  This new fossil find is important for a number of reasons.  Firstly, the Lavernock shales represent strata formation in a shallow, marine environment.  These rocks were laid down at the very beginning of the Jurassic geological period (Hettangian faunal stage), this discovery is one of just a handful of dinosaur fossils known from this location.

Most of the dinosaur material from the Lavernock Point area that had been found in the past consisted of highly eroded, isolated and very fragmentary bones.  The rocks do preserve fossils of vertebrates, fish scales and teeth are the most common finds these too are usually quite worn.

Early Jurassic Dinosaur

It seems some 200 million years ago, the carcase of a not fully grown, meat-eating dinosaur was washed out to sea, when the corpse sank, it was covered in fine silt and the fossilisation process began.  The five blocks in which the largely disarticulated fossil was found, (bone material representing about 5% of the total skeleton), were washed out of the cliffs during storms in the spring of 2014.  Brothers Nick and Rob Hanigan were responsible for making the fossil find.  One of the brothers came across the exposed blocks whilst out fossil hunting and alerted his brother to help explore the immediate location after the rock fall.

Nick and Rob were able to locate a number of bones including fragments of the skull and some very fine examples of the dinosaur’s teeth.  They are to be congratulated for their discovery, had the fossils remained exposed on the beach for just a few weeks they may have been subjected to erosion or even washed out to see with the next high tide and therefore potentially lost forever.

For models and figures of Jurassic dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures: Mojo Fun Prehistoric and Extinct Models.

A Close up of the Upper Jaw Bone and Tooth Surrounded by Other Skull Material

Jaw and skull fossil material.

Picture credit: National Museum of Wales

Welsh Dinosaur Discovery

Fragmentary fossils that have been assigned to the Dinosauria have been found in this part of the British Isles before, we have had the opportunity to look at pictures of a number of specimens from south, central England.

These specimens consist of, for the most part, isolated bones, here is an Early Jurassic Theropod dinosaur that is represented by a lot more fossil material.  The specimen has been studied by scientists from the National Museum of Wales, along with experts from Manchester and Portsmouth Universities.  We are expecting a formal scientific paper to be published in the autumn and we think that the distinguished University of Portsmouth palaeontologist Dr David Martill we be one of the authors.

Dr John Nudds, (Manchester University), who has examined the specimen stated:

“It is very rare to find this type of dinosaur at all and never before in Wales.  In fact it is only the second dinosaur ever found in Wales.”*

The Blocks of Material and a Reconstruction on Display at the National Museum of Wales

On display the fossils with a skeleton reconstruction.

Picture credit: National Museum of Wales

A Welsh Dinosaur

We are aware of a number of ichnogenera described from trace fossils found near Bendrick Rock, down the coast from the Lavernock site.  Theropod footprints have been found in Wales, but body fossils are extremely rare.  The first dinosaur described from Welsh deposits is Pantydraco caducus, which is known from a partial skull and post cranial material, it belongs to the Sauropodomorpha group and its fossils were collected from a quarry in Bonvilston, about six miles north-west of the Lavernock fossil discovery.  Could Pantydraco have been attacked by this, as yet, unnamed theropod?  The answer is no, the strata in which the fossils of Pantydraco were found are several million years older than the Lavernock sediments.

The Lavernock Specimen

In addition, the Lavernock specimen represents an individual that would have been around half a metre high at the hips and measuring around two to three metres in length.  It is very likely that this little meat-eating dinosaur fed on insects, small reptiles and mammals, although when fully grown, perhaps over five metres in length, other Early Jurassic dinosaurs including sauropodomorphs were probably on the menu.

* This may not be the second dinosaur fossil discovered in Wales, isolated bone fragments have been found in South Wales from near Bridgend and from the Lavernock area.  Unfortunately, these fossils are very difficult to assign with any certainty to a specific clade of the Dinosauria.  They may not represent dinosaurs at all but other related archosaurs.

We shall have to wait for the scientific paper, this will provide a lot more information and also help to assign this particular specimen to a family.  We suspect that the fossils represent a member of the Coelophysidae, it will most certainly be a new species.  So very few fossils of Late Triassic/Early Jurassic theropod dinosaurs have been found, a time when the Theropoda were diversifying and evolving into a number of new forms.  This little dinosaur may represent the earliest known dinosaur from the Jurassic.

Illustrating the Dinosaur

There are a couple of things to note about the illustration produced by the highly talented palaeo-artist Bob Nicholls, first of all the animal is not painted a dull grey or brown.  This dinosaur has a reddish hue with distinctive white markings, a sign of the times as more colourful depictions of the Dinosauria are now becoming the norm.  In addition, this theropod dinosaur has quills and tufts of simple feathers.  This is a nod to the now widely accepted theory that most theropod dinosaurs were indeed feathered.

More Information About British Dinosaurs

A comprehensive guide to British dinosaurs over 400 pages.

Picture credit: Siri Scientific Press

For further information on dinosaurs from the British Isles we recommend the excellent “Dinosaurs of the British Isles” by Dean R. Lomax and Nobumichi Tamura

Copies can be purchased here: Siri Scientific Press.

 Regaliceratops peterhewsi – The Curious World of Royal Chasmosaurines

Recently published in the journal “Current Biology” comes a description of the remarkably flamboyant Regaliceratops, the name translates as “royal horned face”,  a new species of horned dinosaur from south-western Alberta (Canada) that highlights once again that the Dinosauria have a few more surprises for palaeontologists awaiting in the Upper Cretaceous aged sediments of North America.

A large fossilised skull of a horned dinosaur was discovered by geologist Peter Hews back in 2005.  The fossil material consists of much of the cranial material, but the rostral bone and lower jaw are missing.  Although the exact stratigraphical location of the fossil find is a little uncertain (blame the lack of distinctive marker beds in the locality), it is likely that this horned dinosaur lived in the Middle Maastrichtian faunal stage of the Cretaceous around 68 million years ago.

Geologist Peter Hews with the Prepared Regaliceratops peterhewsi

Geologist Peter Hews with the skull of Regaliceratops.

Picture credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum

Horned dinosaurs are well known for their huge heads and flamboyant crests.  Surrounding the skull frill was a crest of large, plate-like epoccipitals, that reminded the palaeontologists responsible for the study of the fossil (Dr Caleb Brown and Dr Donald Henderson, both from the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Alberta), of a crown, hence, in part this dinosaur’s genus name representing royalty.

Honouring Royalty and a Museum?

The genus name also honours the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, a leading centre of palaeontological research into Late Cretaceous prehistoric animals.  The species name honours Peter Hews for his work in researching the strata of the St Mary’s River, from which the fossil was extracted.

An Illustration of the Royal Dinosaur (Regaliceratops)

A right royal member of the Ceratopsidae.

Picture credit: Julius Csotonyi

An Absence of Postcranial Material

Although no postcranial material has been found, based on the skull dimensions and using an analysis of closely related genera such as Anchiceratops, it has been estimated that this herbivorous dinosaur was around five to six metres in length and that it may have weighed as much as 1.5 tonnes, possibly a little more.  The frill ornamentation reminded team members at Everything Dinosaur of the dermal plates found on stegosaurs, but this similarity is superficial.

These structures in combination with the overall shape of the skull, along with the pair of fenestrae (holes) within the crest, were probably used to communicate visually with other members of the herd, although that large crest and the big nose horn may have had defensive functions also.

Hellboy!

A number of media outlets have reported that this dinosaur was nick-named “Hellboy” due to the small pair of brow horns that this dinosaur possessed. They reminded the palaeontologists of the horns on the top of the head of the comic book character, we suspect that the main reason for the nick-name was the great difficulty the scientists had when trying to remove the very hard matrix that surrounded the fossil material.

Although this part of Alberta has not yielded  a great deal of dinosaur fossil material, least not when compared to geological formations such as the Dinosaur Park Formation and Horseshoe Canyon Formation which occur to the west of the fossil site, but this discovery hints that many more species of bizarrely crested horned dinosaurs await discovery.

Characteristics of Chasmosaurine as well as Centrosaurine Dinosaurs

The Ceratopsidae (horned dinosaur) family can be split into two distinct sub-families, the Chasmosaurinae and the Centrosaurinae.  Up until a few years ago, it was a relatively straight forward process when it came to classifying a horned dinosaur into one of these groups.  Centrosaurines tended to have shorter neck shields, small brow horns and a prominent bump or large nose horn.  In contrast, the chasmosaurs were classified as having relatively longer neck frills, a small nose horn and much larger brow horns.

This rather simplistic assessment has fallen out of favour as the myriad of new North American dinosaur species described in the last decade or so have rather “muddied the phylogenetic waters somewhat”, as an Everything Dinosaur team member has stated.

Regaliceratops has centrosaurine characteristics despite its classification of a member of the Chasmosaurinae.

Regaliceratops Compared to Styracosaurus (Centrosaur) and Triceratops (Chasmosaur)

Characteristics of centrosaurines as well as chasmosaurines.

Picture credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum

The picture above shows the skull and horns Regaliceratops (middle) compared to those of the centrosaurine Styracosaurus (left) and the chasmosaurine Triceratops (right).  Regaliceratops has the relatively long neck frill associated with the Chasmosaurinae, but it has very much reduced brow horns which is a typical trait of the centrosaurines.

Late Cretaceous Horned Dinosaurs and Regaliceratops peterhewsi

Late Cretaceous horned dinosaurs of North America, diversified in a relatively short time (geologically)  into a huge range of different types.  The authors of the paper published in “Current Biology” undertook a phylogenetic study of chasmosaurs and they propose the these chasmosaurine dinosaurs can be further split into two groups.

The first, older group of chasmosaurs, containing dinosaurs such as Pentaceratops, Utahceratops, Chasmosaurus and Mojoceratops that lived during the Late Campanian and into the very Early Maastrichtian faunal stage, were smaller and possessed anatomical features that resembled the Centrosaurines.

The second group represents those chasmosaurs that lived towards the very end of the Cretaceous, the likes of Ojoceratops, Eotriceratops, Torosaurus and the most famous horned dinosaur of them all Triceratops.  These chasmosaurs tended to be larger and to have more highly developed chasmosaur features (large brow horns and big, simple neck frills).

Regaliceratops peterhewsi

Based on the known fossil material, the authors state that as the Centrosaurine-like chasmosaurs such as Pentaceratops et al seem to have become extinct at the same time as the true centrosaurs, then a common cause may have been responsible for both these two groups demise.  The second more derived group of chasmosaurines, the group that includes Triceratops, may have diversified to occupy the niches in the ecosystem that were subsequently vacated.

If this phylogenetic study is examined carefully, then an argument can be made for there being a common ancestor of the two groups of chasmosaurines, but no candidate fossil material has been discovered to date, so there is likely to be a number of surprises in the shape of Late Cretaceous horned dinosaurs that represent new species awaiting discovery in North America.

The Skull Material within the Extremely Hard Matrix

Extremely hard limestone matrix (hard work digging out “hell boy”).

Picture credit: Royal Tyrrell Museum

This latest report on the bizarre horned dinosaurs raises a fascinating, yet highly controversial point.  If the authors are correct in their conclusions, then we have chasmosaurine dinosaurs diversifying to fill the ecological niches left empty with the extinction of the centrosaurines. To fill those niches, the chasmosaurs developed anatomical characteristics that resembled the centrosaurs.  This is an example of convergent evolution and it is unique in the Dinosauria as far as we at Everything Dinosaur can work out.  Horns and bony display structures that evolve in two separate groups of dinosaurs which are very similar in appearance and apparent function.

Romantic Palaeontologists

We can’t draw to a close our brief examination of “royal horned face” without mentioning the extremely romantic gesture included in the scientific paper by Caleb Brown.  At the bottom of the acknowledgements section of the paper, Caleb sneaked in a marriage proposal to his partner Dr Lorna O’Brien who works as a technician at the museum.  In the sometimes dry world of academic publishing, the addition of this very personal message may come as a surprise to some, but there have been a number of cases of comments, plays on words or even outright jokes being published in such papers.  However, none of us here can recall a marriage proposal being contained within such a publication.

Proposal Appearing at the Very Bottom of the Paper

By “Royal Command”.

Picture credit: Current Biology

Lorna said yes and we wish the happy couple a peaceful and prosperous future.