Maidment Susannah C R, Barrett Paul M
Fossil Reptiles, Amphibians and Birds Section, Natural History Museum, London, UK.
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2025 Jun 25;12(6):242195. doi: 10.1098/rsos.242195. eCollection 2025 Jun.
Although their remains have been known since the 1870s, the small, bipedal ornithischian dinosaurs from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of the western USA remain poorly known. The historic type specimens are incomplete and poorly preserved and have recently been designated as . Here, we describe a recently collected, partial but three-dimensionally preserved skeleton of a new small-bodied ornithischian from the Morrison Formation of Colorado, USA, that we name gen. et sp. nov. The skeleton includes substantial portions of the axial and appendicular skeleton and, when scored into a phylogenetic analysis, is shown to be a non-cerapodan neornithischian, whose closest relative is from the Late Jurassic of China. The discovery of enhances the diversity of ornithischian dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation and provides new information on their anatomy. In addition, it demonstrates that there is additional cryptic diversity of small-bodied Morrison Formation ornithischians, suggesting they were a more diverse component of these Late Jurassic ecosystems than was previously realized.
尽管自19世纪70年代以来人们就已经知晓它们的遗骸,但来自美国西部上侏罗统莫里逊组的小型两足鸟脚亚目恐龙仍然鲜为人知。具有历史意义的模式标本不完整且保存不佳,最近被指定为 。在此,我们描述了一具最近在美国科罗拉多州莫里逊组采集到的、部分但三维保存的新小型鸟脚亚目恐龙骨架,我们将其命名为 属及新种。该骨架包括轴骨骼和附肢骨骼的大部分,在进行系统发育分析时,显示为非角足龙类新鸟脚亚目恐龙,其最亲近的亲属是来自中国晚侏罗世的 。 的发现增加了莫里逊组鸟脚亚目恐龙的多样性,并提供了有关其解剖结构的新信息。此外,它表明莫里逊组小型鸟脚亚目恐龙存在更多隐藏的多样性,这表明它们在这些晚侏罗世生态系统中是比之前所认识到的更为多样的组成部分。