The taxonomy of a new parvicursorine alvarezsauroid specimen IVPP V20341 (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Wulansuhai Formation of Bayan Mandahu, Inner Mongolia, China

Michael Pittman; Xing Xu; Josef B Stiegler

doi:10.7717/peerj.986

The taxonomy of a new parvicursorine alvarezsauroid specimen IVPP V20341 (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous Wulansuhai Formation of Bayan Mandahu, Inner Mongolia, China

PeerJ. 2015 Jun 9:3:e986. doi: 10.7717/peerj.986. eCollection 2015.

Authors

Michael Pittman¹, Xing Xu², Josef B Stiegler³

Affiliations

¹ Vertebrate Palaeontology Laboratory, Life and Planetary Evolution Research Group, Department of Earth Sciences, The University of Hong Kong , Pokfulam , Hong Kong.
² Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing , China.
³ Department of Biological Sciences, George Washington University , Washington, DC , USA.

Abstract

A new parvicursorine alvarezsauroid theropod specimen IVPP V20341 from the Upper Cretaceous Wulansuhai Formation of Bayan Mandahu, Inner Mongolia, China is described. IVPP V20341 appears to be distinguishable amongst alvarezsauroids by possible cervical procoely and relatively larger semi-circular caudal neural canals, but these features are not proposed as autapomorphies because current knowledge of alvarezsauroid necks and tails remains sparse. IVPP V20341 is distinguishable from Linhenykus-the sole parvicursorine at Bayan Mandahu-by the location of the origination points of the anterior caudal transverse processes; in IVPP V20341 this is the anterodorsal corner of the centra, whereas in Linhenykus it is the posterior end of the prezygapophyses. A number of additional tentative differences between IVPP V20341 and Linhenykus are also identified, but cannot be confirmed until further details of anatomical variation along the neck and tail are revealed by future finds. Thus, following the study of IVPP V20341 there are still seven parvicursorine species from the Upper Cretaceous Gobi Basin, but future finds could increase this to eight species.

Keywords: Alvarezsauroid; Campanian; Inner Mongolia; Parvicursorine; Theropod; Upper Cretaceous.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41120124002), 973 (National Basic Research) program (2012CB821900) and the Department of Land and Resources, Inner Mongolia, China. MP’s participation in the 2013 expedition was funded by the Faculty of Science of the University of Hong Kong. JS’s participation in the expedition was funded by a United States National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) fellowship (1311000). Research by JS was also supported by the Robert Weintraub Fellowship in Systematics and Evolution (George Washington University). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.