Ontogeny and taxonomy of the hadrosaur (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) remains from Basturs Poble bonebed (late early Maastrichtian, Tremp Syncline, Spain)

PLoS One. 2018 Oct 31;13(10):e0206287. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206287. eCollection 2018.

Abstract

The lower Maastrichtian site of Basturs Poble (southern Pyrenees, Spain) is the first hadrosaur bonebed reported from Europe. It is an accumulation of disarticulated lambeosaurine skeletal elements, possibly belonging to Pararhabdodon isonensis. The sample shows high intraspecific morphological variability among many skeletal elements, suggesting the need for caution in choosing characters for phylogenetic analyses. Juvenile to adult individuals are represented in the sample, while hatchling remains are absent. Bone histology reveals that juveniles are over-represented and that the youngest individuals represented by tibia specimens were two years old. Adult individuals, with tibiae 550-600 mm long, were 14-15 years old when they died. However, individual variation in tibia length at skeletal maturity occurs within the sample, so individual maturity cannot be assumed on the basis of bone size alone. The Basturs Poble bonebed occurs within the upper part of the C31r magnetochron. Thus, lambeosaurine hadrosaurids were already present and abundant in the Ibero-Armorica Island at the end of the early Maastrichtian and P. isonensis spans the upper part of the lower Maastrichtian to the upper part of the upper Maastrichtian (upper part of C31r-lower part of C29r).

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Dinosaurs / anatomy & histology
  • Dinosaurs / growth & development*
  • Ecological and Environmental Phenomena*
  • Morphogenesis*
  • Phylogeny
  • Spain

Grants and funding

This paper is a contribution to the projects CGL2011-30069-C02-01 (PI: ÀG), CGL2016-77230-P (PI: ÀG) and CGL-2015-63777 (PI: MK) funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (www.mineco.gob.es, and the projects 20014/100927 (PI: ÀG) and 2014-SGR-1207 (PI: MK) funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (www.gencat.cat). V. Fondevilla acknowledges support from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FPI grant, BES-2012-052366). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.