Vrije Universiteit Brussel

A new titanosaurian sauropod from the Late of Velaux-La Bastide Neuve (Southern France) Díez Díaz, Verónica; Garcia, Géraldine; Pereda-Suberbiola, Xabier; Jentgen, Benjamin Paul C; Stein, Koen; Godefroit, Pascal; Valentin, Xavier

Publication date: 2018

Link to publication

Citation for published version (APA): Díez Díaz, V., Garcia, G., Pereda-Suberbiola, X., Jentgen, B. P. C., Stein, K., Godefroit, P., & Valentin, X. (2018). A new titanosaurian sauropod from the of Velaux-La Bastide Neuve (Southern France). Poster session presented at XVI meeting of the European Association Vertebrate Paleontologists, Caparica, Portugal.

General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights.

• Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 A NEW TITANOSAURIAN SAUROPOD FROM THE LATE CRETACEOUS OF VELAUX-LA BASTIDE NEUVE (SOUTHERN FRANCE) DÍEZ DÍAZ, Verónica; GARCIA, Géraldine; PEREDA SUBERBIOLA, Xabier; JENTGEN-CESCHINO, Benjamin; STEIN, Koen; GODEFROIT, Pascal; VALENTIN; Xavier

INTRODUCTION SE France shares important locations riddled with Late Cretaceous sites in which titanosaurian sauropod remains have been found since the 19th Century. But titanosaurian spe- cies have been only properly described from two sites: - atacis from the early Maastrichtian of Bellevue (Aude department)1. - velauciensis from the late Campanian of Velaux-La Bastide Neuve (Bouches-du-Rhône)2. New excavation campaigns were conducted in 2009 and 2012 in Velaux-La Bastide Neuve, and the new remains were studied in detail leading to a more detailed description and emended diagnosis of A. velauciensis, together with histological analyses of several long bones and ribs3,4. However, several remains showed divergences at anatomical and histo- logical levels that helped to assess the previous hypothesis of a second taxon in the site. This is not the first site from the Ibero-Armorican Island in which more than one titanosaurian species is found: - France: in Fox-Amphoux-Métisson (Var department) two teeth morphotypes were found5, and it is highly possible that in Bellevue at least another taxon can be described be- sides A. atacis6, as all the remains from this site and the ones referred to this species deserve a revision. - Spain: in Chera (Valencia) one more taxon was present besides astibiae7, and in Lo Hueco (Cuenca) there are at least one more titanosaur besides Lohuecotitan pandafilandi8,9. The holotype of this new titanosaur comprises a posterior cervical vertebra, a cervical rib, a sacrum, three humeri, a ulna, two metacarpals, both ilium and ischium found articu- lated, and a femur. This material comes from Sequence 2, the same level as A. velauciensis, with the exception of the sacrum, the femur, and one humerus, that were recovered from a second level, 2 meters above the first one. This titanosaur has a unique combination of characters not seen in other Late Cretaceous European taxa, mainly concentrated in its size, histology, pelvic and appendicular -re mains.

Simplified geological map of the Aix-en-Provence Basin (Bouches-du-Rhône, France). Arrow indicates the location of the Velaux-La Bastide Neuve site.

Camarasaurus The humeri have transversely wider distal extremities (almost the same width as the proximal third) in comparison to the other Ibero-Armorican titanosaurs. This hour glass-shape outline is visible in anterior and posterior views. 1 Normanniasaurus 2

3 4 5 Neuquensaurus Lirainosaurus Ampelosaurus Sacrum in dorsal (A) and ventral (B) views. The supraspinous rod was probably less Atsinganosaurus developed in this taxon than in A. velauciensis, and the laminae and fossae patterns NEW TAXON are different bewteen both. In general terms this sacrum and its structures are more robust than in the sacrum of A. velauciensis. 6

Rinconsaurus 7 8

Consensus of two MPT of 184 steps obtained from the Salgado et al. (2015) data matrix, with a CI of 0.538 and a RI of 632. The European taxa are highlighted in the cladogram. The obtained nodes are (1) Titanosauriformes, (2) , (3) , (4) Opisthocoelicaudiinae, (5) Salta- saurinae, (6) Aeolosaurinae, (7) Rinconsauria, (8) .

PROSPECTS Two lithostrotian lineages were present during the latest Cretaceous in Ulna (left), ilium and ischium (center) and femur (right). The general outline of this ulna (the largest the European archipelago. More palaeobiogeographical analyses should be found in Europe so far) is very similar to the ulna C3-1296 of Ampelosaurus: both are large and robust developed to confirm their origins and relationships. specimens, with the proximal edge lateromedially compressed, and greatly expanded in comparison with the quadrangular and poorly expanded distal edge. The ilium lacks C-shaped cross-section of the pubic penduncle of A. velauciensis, and has a hollow at the base of the pubic peduncle. The ischium 1 Le Loeuff 2005. In: Tidwell, V., Carpenter, K. (Eds.), Thunder-Lizards. The Sauropodomorph . Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis pp. 115-137. is larger than the one of A. velauciensis, and the morphology is similar to the one of A. atacis. Al- 2 Garcia et al. 2010. Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France 181, 269-277. though the femur is badly preserved, some features, as the medial deflection of the proximolateral 3, Díez Díaz et al. Submitted. Cretaceous Research. margin, clearly differ from other European taxa. 4 Jentgen et al. 2018. XVI EAVP meeting, Sauropod Symposium (poster session). 5 Díez Díaz et al. 2012. Proceedings of the Geologists' Association 123, 626-637. Acknowledgements 6 Vila et al. 2012. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 350-352, 19-38. 7 Díez Díaz et al. 2015. Spanish Journal of Palaeontology 30(2), 293-306. 8 Díez Díaz et al. 2014. Cretaceous Research 68, 49-60. 9 Páramo et al. 2015. In: Reolid, M. (Ed.), Libro de resúmenes de las XXXI Jornadas de Paleontología de la Sociedad Española de Paleontología pp. 225-226.