Los Cayos S y D: dos afloramientos con icnitas de saurópodos, terópodos y ornitópodos en el Cretácico inferior del área de Los Cayos (Cornago, La Rioja, España)

Abstract

Although most part of the Los Cayos area track-bearing layers have yielded almost non-avian theropod footprints, Los Cayos S and D have revealed the presence of fossil prints belonging to sauropods and ornithopods respectively. Los Cayos S contains ten track-bearing layers, but the most significant one shows a short sauropod trackway that, based on manus print morphology, it is identified with the ichnogenus Titanosaurimanus . This trackway was caused by a titanosaurid sauropod or at least by a titanosauriform. On the contrary, Los Cayos D has yielded abundant footprints —most of them isolated— that have been produced by relatively big ornithopod dinosaurs. We identify these tracks with the ichnogenus Iguanodontipus . The existence of both footprint morphotypes is very interesting for the Los Cayos area due to it represents the presence of large herbivorous dinosaurs in those Cretaceous ecosystems that produced the sediments of the Enciso Group.