Historical Background of Late Cretaceous Dinosaur Studies and Associated Biota in India

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the record of dinosaur (skeletal and nests) studies in India from 1828 to 2020. For the last 180 years, strata of the Lameta Formation have been extensively studied for fossil dinosaurs. The first dinosaur skeletal remains were excavated by Captain Sleeman from the Jabalpur area (in Matley, Rec Geol Surv India 53:142–164, 1921) and, subsequently, fragmentary remains of Titanosaurus were recorded by Lydekker (Rec Geol Surv India: 10:30–43, 1877; Rec Geol Surv India XXIII(1):20–24, 1890a; Proc Zool Soc 1890:602–604, 1890b). Medlicott (Mem. Geol Surv India 2:1–95, 1860) introduced the term Lameta Formation for the rocks lying on the right bank of the Narbada River, 15 km south-west of the Jabalpur at Lameta Ghat. British (Matley, Rec Geol Surv India 53:142–164, 1921; Huene and Matley, Mem Geol Surv India Palaeontol Indica 21(1):1–72, 1933) and American geologists (Wilson et al. Contrib Mus Paleontol Univ Michigan 33(1):1–27, 2019) discovered numerous sauropod skeletal remains from the Bara Simla Hill and Chhota Simla Hill areas at Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh). The Indian Late Cretaceous theropods are largely typified by fragmentary skeletal remains of coelurosaurs, abelisaurids and allosaurids (Huene and Matley, Mem Geol Surv India Palaeontol Indica 21(1):1–72, 1933; Chatterjee, J Paleontol 52(3):570–580, 1978; Wilson et al., Univ Michigan 31:1–42, 2003; Novas et al. 2010). Chatterjee (J Paleontol 52(3):570–580, 1978) reported a megalosaurid (Indosaurus) and a very primitive tyrannosaurid (Indosuchus) at Bara Simla Hill, Jabalpur. Dinosaur eggs were first reported from the Lameta Formation of Gujarat (Mohabey 1983), and subsequently numerous discoveries were made from Jabalpur, Districts Dhar and Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, and the Kheda-Panchmahal area and Chandrapur districts of Maharashtra (Srivastava et al. 1986; Sahni and Tripathi, Cretaceous event stratigraphy and the correlation of the Indian nonmarine strata. A Seminar cum Workshop IGCP 216 and 245, Chandigarh, pp 35–37, 1990; Sahni and Khosla, Cretaceous System in East and SouthEast Asia. Research Summary, Newsletter Special Issue IGCP 350, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan, pp 53–61, 1994a; Aspects of Sauropod Palaeobiology GAIA, pp 215–223, 1994b, Curr Sci 67(6):456–460, 1994c; Khosla and Sahni, J Palaeont Soc India 45:57–78, 1995; J Asi Earth Sci 21(8):895–908, 2003; Vianey-Liaud et al., J Vert Paleontol 23(3):575–585, 2003; Fernández and Khosla, Hist Biol 27(2):158–180, 2015; Khosla, Acta Geol Pol 64(3):311–323, 2014; Khosla, Hist Biol:1–12, 2019, etc.). Apart from dinosaurs, the Lameta Formation and intertrappean beds have been extensively studied for other fossilized biotic elements such as crocodiles, turtles, lizards, frogs, mammals, coprolites, ostracods, charophytes, gastropods, pollens, phytoliths, diatoms, etc. (Matley, Rec Geol Surv India 74:535–547, 1939; Khosla and Sahni, J Asi Earth Sci 21(8):895–908, 2003; Ghosh et al., Cret Res 24:743–750, 2003; Vianey-Liaud et al., J Vert Paleontol 23(3):575–585, 2003; Fernández and Khosla, Hist Biol 27(2):158–180, 2015; Khosla, Hist Biol:1–12, 2019; Kapur and Khosla 2016, 2019, etc.). The presence of the above-mentioned biota indicates a Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) age, and the Lameta Formation has been considered as deposits of fluvial and pedogenically modified, semi-arid fan, palustrine flat deposits.