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New Avialan Remains and a Review of the Known Avifauna from the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia

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New Avialan Remains and a Review of the Known Avifauna from the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY CENTRAL PARK WEST AT 79TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10024 Number 3447, 12 pp., 3 ®gures, 2 tables June 2, 2004 New Avialan Remains and a Review of the Known Avifauna from the Late Cretaceous Nemegt Formation of Mongolia JULIA A. CLARKE1 AND MARK A. NORELL2 ABSTRACT Small vertebrates have remained relatively poorly known from the Nemegt Formation, al- though it has produced abundant and well-preserved large dinosaur remains. Here we report three new avialan specimens from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Omnogov Aimag, Mongolia. These fossils were collected from the Nemegt Formation exposed at the locality of Tsaagan Khushu in the southern Gobi Desert. All of the new ®nds are partial isolated bones with a limited number of preserved morphologies; however, they further understanding of dinosaur diversity in the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia and, speci®cally, from the Nemegt Formation. The new specimens are described and evaluated in phylogenetic analyses. These analyses indicate that all three fossils are placed as part of the clade Ornithurae. Avialan diversity of the Nemegt Formation is reviewed and brie¯y compared with that of the underlying Djadokhta and Barun Goyot Formations. These formations have been consid- ered to represent at least two distinct Late Cretaceous environments, with the Nemegt typically interpreted as representing more humid conditions. Ornithurine and enantiornithine birds are known from the Nemegt as well as the Djadokhta and Barun Goyot Formations, although ornithurine remains are more common in the Nemegt. No avialan species known from the Djadokhta, or Barun Goyot, are also known from the Nemegt Formation and, overall, the avialan taxa from these formations do not appear more closely related to each other than to other avialans. Whether these faunal differences are best interpreted as environmental, tem- poral, or sampling/preservational should be further investigated. 1 Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History; North Carolina State University and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences ([email protected]). 2 Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History ([email protected]). Copyright q American Museum of Natural History 2004 ISSN 0003-0082 2 AMERICAN MUSEUM NOVITATES NO. 3447 Fig. 1. Map of Mongolia indicating where the fossils were recovered, the locality of Tsaagan Khushu in the western Gobi Desert (Omongov Aimag). INTRODUCTION lected in 2001. None of the specimens ap- Three new avialan fossils were collected pears to be from a juvenile animal; muscular from the Maastrichtian (Martinson et al., scars and tubercles are well developed, the 1969) Nemegt Formation (Efremov, 1954; bone surfaces are smooth, and the proximal but see Gradzinski et al., 1977) in southern tarsals are completely fused to the tibia in Mongolia by the Mongolian Academy of IGM 100/1310. Sciences/American Museum of Natural His- The Nemegt Formation has been inter- tory (MAS/AMNH) expeditions in 2000 and preted as representing a dominantly ¯uvial 2001. The ®nds are all partial, isolated bones environment with most fossils from channel recovered from the western exposures of ®ll, point bar, and occasional overbank de- Tsaagan Khushu (Gradzinski et al., 1977), a posits laid down under more humid condi- locality in the Nemegt Basin (Omongov tions than in the underlying Djadokhta For- Aimag, Mongolia; ®g. 1). All three speci- mation (Gradzinski, 1970; Jerzykiewicz and mens were found in distinct, small, well-sort- Russell, 1991). In marked contrast to the un- ed sand lenses comparatively rich in isolated derlying Djadokhta Formation (Dashzeveg et small vertebrate elements (e.g., ®sh verte- al., 1995), the remains of small vertebrates brae, turtle plastron, and carapace frag- are rare from the Nemegt Formation, which ments). A proximal tibiotarsus (IGM 100/ has produced abundant and well-preserved 1311) described here was discovered during large dinosaur remains (OsmoÂlska, 1980; the 2000 MAS/AMNH expedition, and a dis- Barsbold, 1983). The Nemegt fauna has also tal tibiotarsus (IGM 100/1310) as well as a been described as more cosmopolitan than proximal humerus (IGM 100/1309) were col- that of the Djadokhta, having stronger af®n- 2004 CLARKE AND NORELL: NEW AVIALAN FOSSILS FROM MONGOLIA 3 ities to faunas from North American Late American Museum of Natural History; IGM, Cretaceous localities (Jerzykiewicz and Rus- Institute of Geology, Mongolian Academy of sell, 1991). Sciences, Ulaanbaatar. Previously described avialan remains from the Nemegt Formation include ®ve isolated DESCRIPTION OF THE NEW and incomplete bones referred to the Hes- MATERIAL perornithes (Kurochkin, 2000) and two spec- imens comprising associated forelimb ele- IGM 100/1309 is a proximal left humerus ments that are the holotypes of the enantior- (®g. 2A; table 1). The humeral head is glo- nithine Gurilynia nessovi (Kurochkin, 1999) bose but comparatively weakly expanded and proposed presbyornithid anseriform Tev- proximally and anteroposteriorly. The pneu- iornis gobiensis (Kurochkin et al., 2002). motricipital fossa is comparatively diminu- The small theropod Mononykus olecranus tive, does not excavate the distal surface of (Perle et al., 1993) was also described from the ventral tubercle, and does not contain any the Nemegt Formation (at Bugin Tsav) as a pneumatic foramina. The dorsal surface of basal avialan (Perle et al., 1993); however, the ventral tubercle bears a depressed, sub- this taxon and other alvarezsaurids are now triangular scar. The bar that demarcates the most often placed phylogenetically outside dorsal edge of this fossa in Aves (crus dor- Avialae (e.g., Norell et al., 2001). The exis- sale; Baumel and Witmer, 1993) is essential- tence of specimens of ``graculavid charadri- ly absent. At the dorsal edge of the pneu- iforms'' or ``transitional shorebirds'', and motricipital fossa is a slight ridge, or raised crown clade avian taxa including presbyor- intermuscular scar. A concavity lying just nithid anseriforms, phalacrocoracids, and di- dorsal to this ridge (®g. 2A) may correspond omediids, in the Nemegt Formation has also to a feature identi®ed as the m. scapulohu- been indicated (Kurochkin, 2000: 556). meralis cranialis attachment in Presbyornis However, so far only one of these specimens pervetus (Ericson, 1999) that is also present has been described (Kurochkin et al., 2002) in the presbyornithid Telmabates antiquus and one isolated tarsometatarsus from the holotype (AMNH 3170). In IGM 100/1309, Barun Goyot Formation (Kurochkin, 2000) this scar is not bounded dorsally, while in was recently removed from the Presbyorni- Presbyornis pervetus and Telmabates antiq- thidae (Kurochkin et al., 2002). Thus, with uus this scar is bounded by a continuation of the exception of the large enantiornithine the dorsal edge (crus dorsale; Baumel and Gurilynia nessovi, all of the avialan taxa Witmer, 1993) of the pneumotricipital fossa. from the Nemegt have been considered parts A second fossa (®g. 2A) strongly under- of Ornithurae, either as relatively closely re- cuts the posterodistal edge of the humeral lated to Aves as part of Hesperornithes, or as head and is open to the capital incisure de- parts of crown clade avian lineages. veloped between the head and the well-pro- The taxonomic status of previously dis- jected ventral tubercle. Just dorsal to the hu- covered avialan fossils from the Nemegt For- meral head, a scar-marked dorsal tubercle is mation is brie¯y reviewed here, and known visible (®g. 2A). From the preserved frag- Nemegt avialan diversity is compared to that ment of the deltopectoral crest it cannot be from the underlying Djadokhta and Barun determined whether it was de¯ected anteri- Goyot Formations. Gradzinski et al. (1977) orly or dorsally. The proximoposterior sur- suggested, on the basis of faunal differences, face of the crest is concave. The lig. acro- that the Barun Goyot Formation was younger coracohumerale attachment is developed as a than the Djadokhta Formation. However, discrete fossa, rather than as a transverse more recent work has not supported this con- groove. clusion, instead implying that the Djadokhta IGM 100/1310 is a slightly abraded prox- and Barun Goyot are nearly coeval (Jerzyk- imal left tibiotarsus from an avialan approx- iewicz and Russell, 1991; Dashzeveg et al., imately the size of Gallus gallus (®g. 2B; 1995; Jerzykiewicz et al., 1993; Gao and No- table 1). Both anterior and lateral cnemial rell, 2000). crests are clearly developed. Although the INSTITUTIONAL ABBREVIATIONS: AMNH, midsection of the patellar crest and antero- 4 AMERICAN MUSEUM NOVITATES NO. 3447 Fig. 2. A. IGM 100/1309 in (left) posterior, (middle) anterior, and (right) proximal views. B. IGM 100/1310 in (left) anterolateral, (middle) medial, and (right) proximal views. C. IGM 100/1311 in (left) anterior, (middle) posterior, and (right) distal views. Anatomical abbreviations: acm, anterior cnemial crest; cap, capital incisure; dep, depression (m. scapulohumeralis cranialis attachment?); dt, dorsal 2004 CLARKE AND NORELL: NEW AVIALAN FOSSILS FROM MONGOLIA 5 TABLE 1 PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSES Measurements of New Mongolian Fossils (mm) To assess the phylogenetic relationships of the new specimens, they were scored for characters in the Clarke and Norell (2002) matrix, which includes 185 characters infor- mative for the 15 ingroup and two outgroup taxa. This dataset was analyzed using PAUP* 4.0b8[PPC] (Swofford, 2001). The three specimens (IGM 100/1309, IGM 100/1310, and IGM 100/1311) were included as sepa- rate terminals since they were unassociated, and there is no evidence that they represent a single taxon. Analysis settings were the same as those in Clarke and Norell (2002): all searches were branch and bound; ``amb'' in the ``Parsimony Settings'' menu was se- lected such that internal branches with a min- imum length of 0 were collapsed to form a proximal portion of the anterior cnemial crest soft polytomy; and ambiguity was distin- are abraded, it can be determined from their guished from polymorphism. The scorings intact portions that neither cnemial crest was for the new Mongolian specimens are given well projected proximally.
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