''Moabosaurus'' (meaning " Moab reptile") is a genus of

turiasauria Turiasauria is an unranked clade of basal sauropod dinosaurs known from Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous deposits in Europe, North America, and Africa. Description Turiasauria was originally erected by Royo-Torres et al. (2006) to include '' ...

n sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous

Cedar Mountain Formation The Cedar Mountain Formation is the name given to a distinctive sedimentary geologic formation in eastern Utah, spanning most of the early and mid- Cretaceous. The formation was named for Cedar Mountain in northern Emery County, Utah, where Will ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Description

''Moabosaurus'' is characterized by a suite of features including: extremely low neural spines that are thin, transverse ridges in the posterior cervical vertebrae and anterior dorsal vertebrae; strongly procoelous proximal and distal caudal vertebrae; and an ulna with well-developed lateral and medial anteroproximal ridges combined with a large olecranon process. According to the 2017 article which officially named and described ''Moabosaurus'', the animal was said to reach 10 meters (32.8 feet) long. However, the specimens which were examined belonged to juveniles and sub-adults, so it's possible that the creature measured longer when fully-grown.

Discovery and naming

''Moabosaurus'' was collected from the Dalton Wells Quarry, which is about 20 km northwest of

Moab, Utah Moab () is the largest city and county seat of Grand County in eastern Utah in the western United States, known for its dramatic scenery. The population was 5,366 at the 2020 census. Moab attracts many tourists annually, mostly visitors to ...

. The quarry produced parts of at least 18 individuals of ''Moabosaurus'' based on the number of braincases present, totalling over 5,500 bones. Many of the recovered bones are fragmentary due to intense trampling as evidenced by breakage and trample scratches.Britt, B.B., Eberth, D.A., Scheetz, R.D., Greenhalgh, B.W., Stadtman, K.L., 2009. Taphonomy of debris-flow hosted dinosaur bonebeds at Dalton Wells, Utah (Lower Cretaceous, Cedar Mountain Formation, USA). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 280(1-2):1-22. Another factor that degraded the bones before burial was consumption by insects. Insects, probably beetle larvae, consumed portions of the bones that were in contact with the ground, as evidenced by burrows and mandible marks. Later, the bones were transported a short distance by a stream and buried in sediments reworked from the underlying Morrison Formation.Eberth, D.A., Britt, B.B., Scheetz, R.D., Stadtman, K.L., and Brinkman, D.B., 2006. Dalton Wells: Geology and significance of debris-flow-hosted dinosaur bonebeds (Cedar Mountain Formation, eastern Utah, USA). Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Palaeoclimatology, 236:217-245. Detrital zircon crystals from the Dalton Wells Quarry yield an age of 125 million years, indicating ''Moabosaurus'' is Aptian in age.

Classification

Phylogenetic analyses in the describing article in 2017 indicated that ''Moabosaurus'' is a basal titanosauriform macronarian neosauropod. Unlike other titanosauriform sauropods it has thick-walled vertebrae with large pneumatic chambers (camerate-grade) as in basal macronarians and large, spatulate teeth, as in '' Camarasaurus''. However, a second study which was made in 2017 placed it in the

Turiasauria Turiasauria is an unranked clade of basal sauropod dinosaurs known from Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous deposits in Europe, North America, and Africa. Description Turiasauria was originally erected by Royo-Torres et al. (2006) to include '' ...

, thus outside of the

Neosauropoda Neosauropoda is a clade within Dinosauria, coined in 1986 by Argentine paleontologist José Bonaparte and currently described as ''Saltasaurus loricatus'', ''Diplodocus longus'', and all animals directly descended from their most recent common ...

. With ''

Turiasaurus ''Turiasaurus'' (meaning " Turia lizard") is a genus of sauropod dinosaurs. It is known from a single fossil specimen representing the species ''Turiasaurus riodevensis'', found in the Kimmeridgian Villar del Arzobispo Formation of Teruel, Spain ...

'' it shares derived features of the braincase; bifurcated cervical (neck) ribs; extremely low neural spines on the cervical and anterior dorsal vertebrae; and strongly procoelous proximal caudal vertebrae.

Paleoecology

The Dalton Wells quarry has also yielded specimens of ''

Venenosaurus ''Venenosaurus'' ( ) was a sauropod dinosaur. The name literally means "poison lizard", and it was named so after the Poison Strip Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation in Utah, United States, where the fossils were discovered by a Denver Museum ...

'' (a brachiosaurid sauropod), the theropod dinosaurs ''

Utahraptor ''Utahraptor'' (meaning "Utah's thief") is a genus of large dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in North America during the Early Cretaceous period. It was a heavy-built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivore. It contains a single species, ''Utah ...

'' and ''

Nedcolbertia ''Nedcolbertia'' is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Period of North America. Discovery and naming Three skeletons of a theropod were discovered in 1993 by Christopher Whittle near Cisco in the basal Yellow Cat Member of ...

'', plus a tall-spined

iguanodontia Iguanodontia (the iguanodonts) is a clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. Some members include ''Camptosaurus'', ''Dryosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', '' Tenontosaurus'', and the hadrosaurids or "duck-bil ...

n, and the ankylosaurian '' Gastonia''. Non-dinosaurian taxa are rare at the quarry and are limited to fragments of a

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 ...

crocodilia Crocodilia (or Crocodylia, both ) is an order of mostly large, predatory, semiaquatic reptiles, known as crocodilians. They first appeared 95 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period ( Cenomanian stage) and are the closest livi ...

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked t ...

, and a neochoristodere.Britt, B.B., R. D. Scheetz, D. B. Brinkman, and D. A. Eberth. 2006. A Barremian neochoristodere from the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, USA. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 26(4): 1005-1008.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6886334 Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Turiasauria Fossil taxa described in 2017

Description

Discovery and naming

Classification

Paleoecology

See also

References