[dinosaur] New records of theropods from Cretaceous of New Jersey (2019)

Ben Creisler
[email protected]

A new paper in open access"


Chase Doran Brownstein (2019)
New records of theropods from the latest Cretaceous of New Jersey and the
Maastrichtian Appalachian fauna.
Royal Society Open Science 6(11): 191206
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The faunal changes that occurred in the few million years before the
Cretaceous–Palaeogene extinction are of much interest to vertebrate
palaeontologists. Western North America preserves arguably the best fossil
record from this time, whereas terrestrial vertebrate fossils from the
eastern portion of the continent are usually limited to isolated, eroded
postcranial remains. Examination of fragmentary specimens from the American
east, which was isolated for the majority of the Cretaceous as the landmass
Appalachia, is nonetheless important for better understanding dinosaur
diversity at the end of the Mesozoic. Here, I report on two theropod teeth
from the Mount Laurel Formation, a lower-middle Maastrichtian unit from
northeastern North America. One of these preserves in detail the structure
of the outer enamel and resembles the dentition of the tyrannosauroid
Dryptosaurus aquilunguis among latest Cretaceous forms in being heavily
mediolaterally compressed and showing many moderately developed enamel
crenulations. Along with previously reported tyrannosauroid material from
the Mt Laurel and overlying Cretaceous units, this fossil supports the
presence of non-tyrannosaurid tyrannosauroids in the
Campanian–Maastrichtian of eastern North America and provides evidence for
the hypothesis that the area was still home to relictual vertebrates
through the end of the Mesozoic. The other tooth is assignable to a
dromaeosaurid and represents both the youngest occurrence of a non-avian
maniraptoran in eastern North America and the first from the Maastrichtian
reported east of the Mississippi. This tooth, which belonged to a 3–4 m
dromaeosaurid based on size comparisons with the teeth of taxa for which
skeletons are known, increases the diversity of the Maastrichtian dinosaur
fauna of Appalachia. Along with previously reported dromaeosaurid teeth,
the Mt Laurel specimen supports the presence of mid-sized to large
dromaeosaurids in eastern North America throughout the Cretaceous.