Abstract
BackgroundA new dinosaur tracksite from ?Middle Jurassic sediments of the Irhazer Group on the plains of Agadez (Rep. Niger, northwest Africa) revealed extraordinarily well preserved didactyl tracks of a digitigrade bipedal trackmaker. The distinct morphology of the pes imprints indicates a theropod trackmaker from a paravian maniraptoran closely related to birds.Methodology/Principal FindingsThe early age and the morphological traits of the tracks allow for description of the new ichnotaxon Paravipus didactyloides. A total of 120 tracks are assigned to 5 individual trackways. The ‘medium-sized’ tracks with an average footprint length of 27.5 cm and footprint width of 23.1 cm are deeply imprinted into the track bearing sandstone.Conclusions/SignificanceA comparison with other didactyl tracks gives new insights into the foot morphology of advanced maniraptoran theropods and contributes to knowledge of their evolutionary history. The new ichnotaxon takes an important position in the ichnological fossil record of Gondwana and the mid-Jurassic biota worldwide, because it is among the earliest known records of paravian maniraptorans and of didactyl theropod tracks from Africa.
Highlights
The Middle Jurassic (176-161 Ma) was a time of profound paleogeographic change on a global scale [1]
Spreading of the Proto-Atlantic permanently separated Gondwana and Laurasia with only a narrow Latin American land bridge between North and South America, that allowed for occasional faunal exchange until the early Late Jurassic (Fig. 1)
Few deinonychosaurian tracks are known, and mainly from the Cretaceous of Asia and North America [57,59,60,61,62], with one exception from the Tuchengzi Formation of China where the possible age of track bearing sediment ranges from Latest Jurassic to Early Cretaceous [63]
Summary
The Middle Jurassic (176-161 Ma) was a time of profound paleogeographic change on a global scale [1]. Gondwana itself started to break up, producing a large continental seaway in the East that is part of the Mozambique Channel between Africa and Madagascar. Northern Gondwana was located close to the equator and had a summer-wet climate with high plant productivity and diversity [4,5,6,7]. A high diversity of terrestrial vertebrates with dinosaurs as the dominant group is strongly indicated but not much of it is yet recorded. A new dinosaur tracksite from ?Middle Jurassic sediments of the Irhazer Group on the plains of Agadez (Rep. Niger, northwest Africa) revealed extraordinarily well preserved didactyl tracks of a digitigrade bipedal trackmaker. The distinct morphology of the pes imprints indicates a theropod trackmaker from a paravian maniraptoran closely related to birds
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