Previously undocumented postcranial material from the Chipping Norton Limestone Formation (Middle Jurassic: Lower Bathonian) of Cross Hands Quarry, near Little Compton, Warwickshire represents a new large-bodied theropod dinosaur, distinct from the contemporaneous Megalosaurus bucklandii. Cruxicheiros newmanorum gen. et sp. nov. is diagnosed by a single autapomorphy, the presence of a proximomedially inclined ridge within the groove that marks the lateral extent of the posterior flange of the femoral caput (trochanteric fossa). C. newmanorum shows three tetanuran features: widely separated cervical zygapophyses, a swollen ridge on the lateral surface of the iliac blade and an anterior spur of the caudal neural spines. However, due to fragmentary preservation its affinities within Tetanurae remain uncertain: phylogenetic analysis places it as the most basal tetanuran, the most basal megalosauroid (= spinosauroid) or the most basal neotetanuran.
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20 November 2009
A New Large-Bodied Theropod Dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Warwickshire, United Kingdom
Roger B.J. Benson,
Jonathan D. Radley
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
Vol. 55 • No. 1
March 2010
Vol. 55 • No. 1
March 2010
Bathonian
Chipping Norton Limestone Formation
Cruxicheiros
Dinosauria
England
Megalosaurus
Tetanurae