Abstract
Thyreophora is a clade of globally distributed herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs. The earliest forms are known from the Early Jurassic, and their latest surviving representatives witnessed the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Throughout their evolutionary history, these ‘shield bearers’ became lumbering quadrupeds, evolved a wide array of bony armor, plates and spikes, as well as sweeping tail weapons in the form of tail clubs and thagomizers. An isolated new thyreophoran osteoderm from a Lower Jurassic Konservatlagerstätte near Grimmen is described and, with the aid of micro-CT data, compared to an osteoderm of the early diverging thyreophoran Emausaurus ernsti from a different stratigraphic horizon at the same locality.
Highlights
A few dinosaur remains are known from the Lower Jurassic of Europe, including the Sinemurian Scelidosaurus harrisonii Owen 1859 from Dorset, England and Lusitanosaurus liasicus Lapparent and Zbyszewski 1957 of similar age from Portugal
The Posidonia shale equivalent is overlain by a brown clay containing laminated carbonate concretions with the ammonite Eleganticeras elegantulum, drift wood, as well as the potential gravisaurian remains published by Stumpf et al (2015), and the osteoderm described
The proximal aspect of GG 504 shows shallow depressions, which resemble the epiphysis of some long bones; osteoderm bases seem to be variable in thyreophorans, being longitudinally concave as in some osteoderms of Scutellosaurus lawleri
Summary
A few dinosaur remains are known from the Lower Jurassic of Europe, including the Sinemurian Scelidosaurus harrisonii Owen 1859 from Dorset, England and Lusitanosaurus liasicus Lapparent and Zbyszewski 1957 of similar age from Portugal. The clay pit near Grimmen (northeastern Germany) is well known for its rich assemblage of lower Toarcian marine and terrestrial fossils (e.g., Ernst 1967, 1991; Haubold 1990; Ansorge 1996, 2003, 2007; Stumpf et al 2015; Stumpf 2016; Konwert and Stumpf 2017). The Posidonia shale equivalent is overlain by a brown clay containing laminated carbonate concretions with the ammonite Eleganticeras elegantulum (elegantulum subzone of falciferum zone), drift wood, as well as the potential gravisaurian remains published by Stumpf et al (2015), and the osteoderm described . BRSMG, Bristol City Museum and Gallery, Bristol, UK; GG, Greifswalder Geologische Sammlungen, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany; MNA, Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, USA; YPM, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, USA
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