Continuous presence of dinosauromorphs in South America throughout the Middle to the Late Triassic
The dawn of dinosaurs is marked by the appearance of the saurischian lineages in the Late Triassic fossil record, around 230 million years ago. This early burst of diversification of the group is majoritarily represented by sauropodomorphs and herrerasaurids in late Carnian to early Norian of Brazil, Argentina, India, and Zimbabwe. However, "silesaurids", an older and enigmatic group of quadrupedal dinosauromorphs, were recently found, in some works, as stem ornithischians. In this scenario, dinosaurs would have originated far earlier than the end of the Ladinian, a time in which "silesaurids" are already spread through Gondwana. Despite being also recorded in more recent dinosaur-bearing beds in Brazil, "silesaurids" are absent in strata from the early Carnian, an important time frame for dinosaur evolution. Here we present a new "silesaurid", Itaguyra occulta gen. et sp. nov., that fills up the remaining gap of occurrence of these dinosauromorphs and provides new clues to the success of these putative early ornithischians.
Authors
- César Leandro Schultz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7121-0409)
- Marina Bento Soares (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8393-2406)
- Maurício Silva Garcia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5317-0140)
- Voltaire Dutra Paes Neto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6903-8504)
- Tomaz P. Melo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6203-560X)
- Heitor Francischini (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9809-7784)
- Agustín G. Martinelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4489-0888)
- Rodrigo Temp Müller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8894-9875)
- Francesco Battista (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6154-1906)
- Felipe L. Pinheiro (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3354-914X)
- Maurício Rodrigo Schmitt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4235-9180)
- Flávio Augusto Pretto (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8091-7932)
- Alexander W. A. Kellner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7174-9447)
Institutions
- Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (BR)
- Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (BR)
- Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral (BR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2025-05-30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-99362-5
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 8.66
Funders
- Willi Hennig Society
- Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
- Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio Grande do Sul
- Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
- Agencia Nacional de Promoción de la Investigación, el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación