Producción CyT

Dinosaur Track Symposium - Juvenile or dwarf sauropods? The case of the titanosauriform herd from Las Cerradicas tracksite (Teruel, Spain).

Congreso

Autoría:

Diego Castanera ; José Luis Barco ; DÍAZ MARTÍNEZ, IGNACIO ; Jesús Herrero Gascón ; Félix Pérez Lorente ; José Ignacio Canudo

Fecha:

2011

Editorial y Lugar de Edición:

Universitätsverlag Göttingen

ISSN:

978-3-86395-105-4

Resumen *

The Las Cerradicas tracksite (Galve, Iberian Range, Spain) is a reference point in the study of dinosaur tracks. Theropod trackways showing gregarious behavior and an ornithopod trackway showing quadrupedal locomotion have been described. The tracksite has been included in the Iberian Dinosaur Track Project (IDPI) as a candidate for a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Recently, new sauropod trackways have been discovered during preparation of the outcrop for the IDPI project. Las Cerradicas is located near the top of the Villar del Arzobispo Formation (upper Tithonian–middle Berriasian). The sauropod footprints exhibit an interesting morphology. Features, such as the wide-gauge condition and the absence of pollex marks in the manus, suggest that the trackmakers were probably titanosauriform sauropods. The parallel direction of the trackways, as well as the size of the footprints (no more than 30 cm in length), suggests that they were made by a herd of small sauropods travelling close together. Some sauropod tracksites in the global record are dominated by small footprints.Some of them preserve bigger ones attributable to the same ichnotaxon. In other cases, similar footprints of larger size have been described from the same formation. The interpretation in both cases was that the footprints were made by juvenile or subadult individuals. The footprints of Las Cerradicas seem to be different from those found at other sauropod tracksites of the Iberian Range, so another explanation may also be possible: dwarfism. Recent work in palaeohistology has demonstrated that some of the small sauropods described in the fossil record are true “dwarves”. This would be a consequence of their palaeogeographic location and insular habitat. As yet, we cannot demonstrate dwarfism merely on the evidence of footprints, so we consider both hypotheses (juvenile-dwarfism) to be possible. Información suministrada por el agente en SIGEVA

Palabras Clave

LAS CERRADICASETOLOGYVILLAR DEL ARZOBISPO FORMATIONDINOSAUR TRACKS