Dinosaurs and other fossil vertebrates from fluvial deposits in the Lower Cretaceous of southern Tunisia

Abstract

Remains of dinosaurs and other vertebrates (sharks, bony fishes, coelacanths, turtles, crocodilians, pterosaurs) are reported from the Chenini Formation of the Tataouine region in southern Tunisia. The Formation is part of the ‘continental intercalaire’, a succession of continental deposits of Early to Late Cretaceous age distributed over the whole of North Africa and the Sahara. It consists of bar and channel deposits of broad rivers that flowed NNW from the mid-Sahara region towards the southern shore of Tethys. Dinosaur-bearing units in the ‘continental intercalaire’ have been dated to the Hauterivian to Cenomanian, and the Chenini Formation is possibly Albian in age. Dinosaur fossils include abundant teeth of the theropods Carcharodontosaurus and Spinosaurus, as well as postcranial elements of theropods and a medium-sized sauropod. A tooth of an ornithocheirid is the first report of a pterosaur from the region. The dinosaur bones and teeth were transported some distance and deposited in a channel lag, associated with less damaged locally derived material such as fern fronds, coprolites, fish teeth and scales, and crocodilian scutes.