Upper Cretaceous dinosaur track assemblages and a new theropod ichnotaxon from Anhui Province, eastern China

Abstract

Several noteworthy Cretaceous tracksites are known in the Huizhou District (Huangshan City) in the Yangtzee valley of southern Anhui Province. These include some that have been known since the late 1970s but have not been studied in detail until now. The footprints described here occur in siliciclastic fluvial deposits in three distinct horizons. The Xiaohutian tracksite in the Upper Cretaceous Xiaoyan Formation is the most interesting, being situated at a historically famous location used as a Taoist and Buddhist shrine. The Xiaohutian tracksite yields an assemblage with three different morphotypes of non-avian theropod tracks including the new ichnotaxon Paracorpulentapus zhangsanfengi that can be attributed to a theropod with relatively short “fleshy” toes showing convergence with the footprints of small ornithopods. A further diagnostic feature is the trackway pattern with relatively short steps. Associated ichnofossils are invertebrate traces that can be assigned to eurybathic forms such as Palaeophycus and ?Planolites or ?Scoyenia. Thus far skeletal remains from the Xiaoyan Formation have proved the pachycephalosaur Wannanosaurus and indeterminate sauropods. The ichnoassemblages enlarge the known dinosaur fauna by small- to medium-sized theropods that are identified here as the trackmakers and that are otherwise rare in Upper Cretaceous deposits of eastern China. The Shangshangen locality is another significant tracksite which has yielded small bird tracks (cf. Koreanaornis) in association with small tracks of non-avian theropods.