Teeth of embryonic or hatchling sauropods from the Early Cretaceous (Berriasian) of Cherves-de-Cognac, France

Paul M Barrett (1) , Joane Pouech (2) , Jean-Michel M Mazin (3) , Fiona M. Jones (4)

1 NHM - The Natural History Museum [London]
2 CR2P - Centre de recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements
3 LGL-TPE - Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon - Terre, Planètes, Environnement
4 Department of Zoology [Oxford]

The Cherves-de-Cognac site (Charente, France) has yielded a diverse continental microvertebrate fauna of Berriasian (earliest Cretaceous) age. Dinosaur remains are rare, but include three teeth that are referrable to an indeterminate sauropod, which might represent either a titanosauriform, a non-titanosauriform macronarian or a non-neosauropod. The small size of these teeth (with a maximum length of 3 mm, as preserved) and the almost complete absence of emanel wrinkling suggests that they pertained to embry-onic or hatchling individuals. The Cherves-de-Cognac sau-ropod represents a rare occurrence of sauropod embryos/ hatchlings, a new sauropod record from the poorly-known terrestrial Berriasian and another possible instance of the persistence of non-diplodocoid, non-titanosauriform sau-ropods into the Cretaceous.

Domaines: Paléontologie

Paul M Barrett, Joane Pouech, Jean-Michel M Mazin, Fiona M. Jones. Teeth of embryonic or hatchling sauropods from the Early Cretaceous (Berriasian) of Cherves-de-Cognac, France. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 2016, 61 (3), pp.591 - 596. ⟨10.4202/app.00257.2016⟩. ⟨hal-01375385⟩