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Confuciusornis is a genus of basal crow-sized avialan from the Early Cretaceous Period of the Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China, dating from 125 to 120 million years ago. Like modern birds, Confuciusornis had a toothless beak, but closer and later relatives of modern birds such as Hesperornis and Ichthyornis were toothed, indicating that the loss of teeth occurred convergently in Confuciusornis and living birds. It was thought to be the oldest known bird to have a beak, though this title now belongs to an earlier relative Eoconfuciusornis. It was named after the Chinese moral philosopher Confucius. Confuciusornis is one of the most abundant vertebrates found in the Yixian Formation, and several hundred complete specimens have been found.
Carcharodontosaurus is a genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur that lived in North Africa from about 100 to 94 million years ago during the Cenomanian age of the Late Cretaceous. Two teeth of the genus, now lost, were first described from Algeria by French paleontologists Charles Depéret and Justin Savornin as Megalosaurus saharicus. A partial skeleton was collected by crews of German paleontologist Ernst Stromer during a 1914 expedition to Egypt. Stromer did not report the Egyptian find until 1931, in which he dubbed the novel genus Carcharodontosaurus, making the type species C. saharicus. Unfortunately, this skeleton was destroyed during the Second World War. In 1995 a nearly complete skull of C. saharicus, the first well-preserved specimen to be found in almost a century, was discovered in the Kem Kem Beds of Morocco; it was designated the neotype in 1996. Fossils unearthed from the Echkar Formation of northern Niger were described and named as another species, C. iguidensis, in 2007.
The Enantiornithes, also known as enantiornithines or enantiornitheans in literature, are a group of extinct avialans, the most abundant and diverse group known from the Mesozoic era. Almost all retained teeth and clawed fingers on each wing, but otherwise looked much like modern birds externally. Over eighty species of Enantiornithes have been named, but some names represent only single bones, so it is likely that not all are valid. The Enantiornithes became extinct at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, along with Hesperornithes and all other non-avian dinosaurs.
Timimus is a genus of small coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Australia. It was originally identified as an ornithomimosaur, but now it is thought to be a different kind of theropod, possibly a tyrannosauroid.
Algoasaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Berriasian-early Valanginian-age Early Cretaceous Upper Kirkwood Formation of Cape Province, South Africa, specifically near a town called Despatch. Only one species, A. bauri, is known.
Paranthodon is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in what is now South Africa during the Early Cretaceous, between 139 and 131 million years ago. Discovered in 1845, it was one of the first stegosaurians found. Its only remains, a partial skull, isolated teeth, and fragments of vertebrae, were found in the Kirkwood Formation. British paleontologist Richard Owen initially identified the fragments as those of the pareiasaur Anthodon. After remaining untouched for years in the British Museum of Natural History, the partial skull was identified by South African paleontologist Robert Broom as belonging to a different genus; he named the specimen Palaeoscincus africanus. Several years later, Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa, unaware of Broom's new name, similarly concluded that it represented a new taxon, and named it Paranthodon owenii. Since Nopcsa's species name was assigned after Broom's, and Broom did not assign a new genus, both names are now synonyms of the current binomial, Paranthodon africanus. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek para (near) with the genus name Anthodon, to represent the initial referral of the remains.
Nqwebasaurus is a basal coelurosaur and is the basal-most member of the coelurosaurian clade Ornithomimosauria from the Early Cretaceous of South Africa. The name Nqwebasaurus is derived from the Xhosa word Nqweba which is the local name for the Kirkwood district, and thwazi is ancient Xhosa for "fast runner". Currently it is the oldest coelurosaur in Africa and shows that basal coelurosaurian dinosaurs inhabited Gondwana 50 million years earlier than previously thought. The type specimen of Nqwebasaurus was discovered by William J. de Klerk who is affiliated with the Albany Museum in Grahamstown. It is the only fossil of its species found to date and was found in the Kirkwood Formation of the Uitenhage Group. Nqwebasaurus has the unofficial nickname "Kirky", due to being found in the Kirkwood.
Polarornis is a genus of prehistoric bird, possibly an anserimorph. It contains a single species Polarornis gregorii, known from incomplete remains of one individual found on Seymour Island, Antarctica, in rocks which are dated to the Late Cretaceous.
Saltasauridae is a family of armored herbivorous sauropods from the Upper Cretaceous. They are known from fossils found in South America, Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe. They are characterized by their vertebrae and feet, which are similar to those of Saltasaurus, the first of the group to be discovered and the source of the name. The last and largest of the group and only one found in North America, Alamosaurus, was thirty-four metres in length and one of the last sauropods to go extinct.
Edmontosaurus regalis is a species of comb-crested hadrosaurid dinosaur. Fossils of E. regalis have been found in rocks of western North America that date from the late Campanian age of the Cretaceous Period 73 million years ago, but it may have possibly lived into the early Maastrichtian.
Pygostylia is a group of avialans which includes the Confuciusornithidae and all of the more advanced species, the Ornithothoraces.
The Kirkwood Formation is a geological formation found in the Eastern and Western Cape provinces in South Africa. It is one of the four formations found within the Uitenhage Group of the Algoa Basin – its type locality – and in the neighbouring Gamtoos Basin. Outcrops of the Kirkwood are also found along the Worcester-Pletmos, Herbertsdale-Riversdale, Heidelberg-Mossel Bay, and Oudtshoorn-Gamtoos basin lines. At these basins the Kirkwood Formation underlies the Buffelskloof Formation and not the Sundays River Formation.
Eusauropoda is a derived clade of sauropod dinosaurs. Eusauropods represent the node-based group that includes all descendant sauropods starting with the basal eusauropods of Shunosaurus, and possibly Barapasaurus, and Amygdalodon, but excluding Vulcanodon and Rhoetosaurus. The Eusauropoda was coined in 1995 by Paul Upchurch to create a monophyletic new taxonomic group that would include all sauropods, except for the vulcanodontids.
Luis María Chiappe is an Argentine paleontologist born in Buenos Aires who is best known for his discovery of the first sauropod nesting sites in the badlands of Patagonia in 1997 and for his work on the origin and early evolution of Mesozoic birds. He is currently the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and director of the museum's Dinosaur Institute. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the American Museum of Natural History, New York after immigrating from Argentina. Chiappe is currently the curator of the award winning Dinosaur Hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, BBC advisor and author of scientific and popular books.
Changyuraptor is a genus of "four-winged", predatory dinosaurs. It is known from a single fossil specimen representing the species Changyuraptor yangi, which was discovered from Early Cretaceous deposits in Liaoning Province, China. C. yangi belongs to the group of dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaurs called the Microraptoria.
Dinosaur teeth have been studied since 1822 when Mary Ann Mantell (1795-1869) and her husband Dr Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790-1852) discovered an Iguanodon tooth in Sussex in England. Unlike mammal teeth, individual dinosaur teeth are generally not considered by paleontologists to be diagnostic to the genus or species level for unknown taxa, due morphological convergence and variability between teeth. and many historically named tooth taxa like Paronychodon and Richardoestesia are today considered nomina dubia, and are used as form taxa to refer to isolated teeth from other localities displaced considerably in time and space from the type specimens. However, it is possible to refer isolated teeth to known taxa provided that the tooth morphology is known and the teeth originate from a similar time and place.
The Uitenhage Group is one of three geological groups, which comprise the onshore and offshore post-Karoo middle to lower Upper Mesozoic geological rock units in South Africa. Stratigraphically, the Uitenhage Group overlies the Suurberg Group and is overlain by the Algoa Group. It contains four formations that range in age from late Early Jurassic and late Early Cretaceous in age.
Patrick S. Druckenmiller is a Mesozoic paleontologist, taxonomist, associate professor of geology, Earth Sciences curator, and museum director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North, where he oversees the largest single collection of Alaskan invertebrate and vertebrate fossils. He has published work on plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mastodons, and dinosaurs in the United States, Svalbard, and Canada. He has co-authored papers on discussions of mass extinctions and biogeography. Much of his work has focused on Arctic species. He is a member of the Spitsbergen Jurassic Research group, which focuses on marine reptiles. Druckenmiller has named many new genera and species, including Edgarosaurus muddi, Nichollsia borealis, Athabascasaurus bitumineus, Cryopterygius kristiansenae, Spitrasaurus larseni, and Spitrasauruswensaasi.
Frankie Jackson is an American academic whose career has focused on the evolution and fossil history of archosaur reproduction, particularly the study of fossil eggs. Her research on fossil eggs spans five continents, and has been foundational to our views of dinosaur nesting behavior.
Iyuku is a genus of iguanodontian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Kirkwood Formation of South Africa. The type species is Iyuku raathi.
References
- ↑ "Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan". Biological Sciences - UCT. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
- ↑ "Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan | Department of Biological Sciences". www.botany.uct.ac.za. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 8 April 2018.
- ↑ "Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan". University of Cape Town. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 25 December 2014.
- ↑ "Dinosaurs: How we know what we know – Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan". Cape Town Science Centre.
- ↑ Brits, Elsabé (7 September 2023). "Sabre-tooth cat named after renowned scientist". Nature Africa. doi:10.1038/d44148-023-00231-y.
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