Nuevos individuos de <i>Morelladon beltrani</i> en el XVII Annual Meeting de la EAVP

Qué no sólo hay uno, que no sólo hay dos, que no sólo hay tres, que sí que son cuatro… los yacimientos de la Formación Arcillas de Morella donde se han localizado restos del estiracosterno Morelladon beltrani. En el XVII Annual Meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists celebrado en Bruselas se han presentados los nuevos restos asignados a Morelladon procedentes de tres yacimientos localizados en la Cantera del Mas de la Parreta.

Aquí va el resumen:

The most representative dinosaur group of the late Barremian Arcillas de Morella Formation are styracosternan ornithopods, which are also very abundant throughout the Iberian Lower Cretaceous. Among the more than 20 vertebrate fossil sites documented in this formation the Mas de la Parreta quarry (CMP), located at the southwest of the locality of Morella (Castellón province, Spain) is particularly noteworthy. Currently, three styracosternan species have been recognized in this quarry: Iguanodon bernissartensis, Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis and Morelladon beltrani. Up to the present, Morelladon was just represented by the holotype specimen located in CMP-MS-03 site. Here, new postcranial bones of Morelladon beltrani from three different sites (CMP-3c, CMP-MS-03 and CMP- MS-05) within the Mas de la Parreta quarry are examined for the first time. These bones correspond to nearly complete and partial sacra of three new individuals. These sacra can be confidently referred to Morelladon beltrani based on the autapomorphic midline ventral keel of the centrum in sacrals 2 and 3 of CMP-3c and CMP-MS-05 specimens and in sacral 4 of CMP-MS-03 and CMP-MS-05 specimens. These new occurrences confirm that remains of this species were more common than previously thought in the Arcillas de Morella Formation.

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