An Iberian stegosaurs paradise: The Villar del Arzobispo Formation (Tithonian–Berriasian) in Teruel (Spain)

Abstract

Since 2002 a number of sites containing stegosaurian remains (bones and tracks) have been discovered in the Villar del Arzobispo Formation (Tithonian–Berriasian) in the Province of Teruel, Spain, mostly in the areas of El Castellar and Riodeva. The material from the latter consists of the postcranial remains of the axial, pelvic and appendicular skeleton of several different sized specimens related to the genus Dacentrurus. The footprints made by a stegosaurian at El Castellar site reflect a new type of medium gauge trackway: Deltapodus ibericus isp. nov. The presence of these tracks near abundant bones related to Dacentrurus highlights this geological formation as a window through which to examine the systematics, behaviour and palaeoecology of these thyreophoran dinosaurs. Since these fossil bones were discovered next to those of other sauropods and ornithopods ( Turiasaurus and Ornithopoda indet.) where there has been virtually no transport of the remains, and since stegosaurian tracks have been found in ichnoassociations with the same groups, they may have coexisted in the wetlands of restricted tidal environments during the Tithonian–Berriasian. The presence of common (or at least phylogenetically closely related) taxa and ichnotaxa in Western Europe, North America and Africa indicates that sea-level fall episodes may have occurred during which the fauna of each area may have reached the emerged regions of the others during the Late Jurassic.