Abstract
Approximately 40% of a skeleton including cranial and postcranial remains representing a new genus and species of basal neotheropod dinosaur is described. It was collected from fallen blocks from a sea cliff that exposes Late Triassic and Early Jurassic marine and quasi marine strata on the south Wales coast near the city of Cardiff. Matrix comparisons indicate that the specimen is from the lithological Jurassic part of the sequence, below the first occurrence of the index ammonite Psiloceras planorbis and above the last occurrence of the Rhaetian conodont Chirodella verecunda. Associated fauna of echinoderms and bivalves indicate that the specimen had drifted out to sea, presumably from the nearby Welsh Massif and associated islands (St David’s Archipelago). Its occurrence close to the base of the Blue Lias Formation (Lower Jurassic, Hettangian) makes it the oldest known Jurassic dinosaur and it represents the first dinosaur skeleton from the Jurassic of Wales. A cladistic analysis indicates basal neotheropodan affinities, but the specimen retains plesiomorphic characters which it shares with Tawa and Daemonosaurus.
Highlights
Theropod dinosaurs are extremely rare in the Lower Jurassic and most reports are of only fragmentary remains[1,2,3,4,5,6]
In Europe Early Jurassic theropods are reported from the Hettangian of Scotland[1], England[2,3,4], France[5] and Belgium[6], but all of these occurrences are of fragmentary material, isolated bones, or a few associated elements, with most of it non-diagnostic at generic level (Fig 1)
The cladistic analysis finds Dracoraptor to lie within Neotheropoda, but is basal within the clade
Summary
Theropod dinosaurs are extremely rare in the Lower Jurassic and most reports are of only fragmentary remains[1,2,3,4,5,6]. This rarity results in a considerable gap in our knowledge of these animals at a time when, indications are, theropods were diversifying rapidly. In Europe Early Jurassic theropods are reported from the Hettangian of Scotland[1], England[2,3,4], France[5] and Belgium[6], but all of these occurrences are of fragmentary material, isolated bones, or a few associated elements, with most of it non-diagnostic at generic level (Fig 1). A few examples of Lower Jurassic theropods are known from elsewhere; they include the abelisaurid Berberosaurus from the Toarcian of Morocco[7], Cryolophosaurus from the Sinemurian-Pliensbachian of Antarctica[8], Syntarsus from the Hettangian-Pliensbachian of South Africa and Zimbabwe [9,10], Podekosaurus
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