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A dyrosaurid from the Paleocene of Senegal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2018

Jeremy E. Martin Open the ORCID record for Jeremy E. Martin [Opens in a new window] ,
Raphaël Sarr  and
Lionel Hautier
Jeremy E. Martin
Affiliation:
Univ. Lyon, ENS de Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, UMR 5276 Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon: Terre, Planètes, Environnement, F-69342 46 Allée d'Italie, Lyon, France
Raphaël Sarr
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Sédimentologie et Biostratigraphie, Département de Géologie, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Sénégal
Lionel Hautier
Affiliation:
Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, UMR5554, CNRS, IRD, EPHE, Université de Montpellier, Montpellier, France
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Abstract

We describe a partial dyrosaurid skeleton recently prepared out of a limestone block discovered in the 1930s from Danian strata along the Atlantic coast of Senegal. The specimen, from a single individual, comprises nicely preserved elements of the appendicular and axial skeleton from the abdominal and sacral region, which enables us to refine our knowledge on some postcranial characteristics of the Dyrosauridae. Although Dyrosauridae are abundant in early Eocene deposits of North Africa, the present discovery in the Danian of Senegal fills a patchier record early after the K/Pg boundary and provides an important comparative data point with the few other Danian dyrosaurid records such as Atlantosuchus from nearby Morocco or Guarinisuchus and Hyposaurus from Brazil and the USA, respectively.

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Journal of Paleontology , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , March 2019 , pp. 343 - 358
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Copyright © 2018, The Paleontological Society 

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