Many sauropod ghost lineages cross the Middle Jurassic, indicating a time interval that requires increased sampling. A wide taxonomic spectrum of sauropodomorphs is known from the Middle Jurassic of China, but the braincase of a new sauropod, named here Nebulasaurus taito gen. et sp. nov., is distinct. Nebulasaurus is sister taxon to Spinophorosaurus from the Middle Jurassic of Africa and represents a clade of basal eusauropods previously unknown from Asia. The revised faunal list indicates dramatic transitions in sauropodomorph faunas from the Jurassic to Cretaceous of Asia; these are consistent with geographic isolation of Asia through the Late Jurassic. Non-sauropod sauropodomorphs, non-mamenchisaurid eusauropods (including basal macronarians), and mamenchisaurids successively replaced previous grades through the Jurassic, and titanosauriforms excluded all other sauropod lineages across the Jurassic—Cretaceous boundary.
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6 June 2013
A New Basal Eusauropod from the Middle Jurassic of Yunnan, China, and Faunal Compositions and Transitions of Asian Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs
Lida Xing,
Tetsuto Miyashita,
Philip J. Currie,
Hailu You,
Jianping Zhang,
Zhiming Dong
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
Vol. 60 • No. 1
March 2015
Vol. 60 • No. 1
March 2015
China
Dinosauria
Eusauropoda
Jurassic
Sauropoda