figshare
Browse
1/1
17 files

Large Tridactyl Dinosaur Tracks from the Early Jurassic Upper Moyeni, Lesotho, southern Africa

dataset
posted on 2020-06-25, 10:49 authored by Emese BordyEmese Bordy
The data included here are the photogrammetric models that are supplemental to the following paper: Abrahams, M., Sciscio L., Reid, M., Haupt, T. & Bordy, E. M., 2020. Large tridactyl dinosaur tracks from the Early Jurassic of southern Gondwana - uppermost Elliot Formation, Upper Moyeni, Lesotho. Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae, 90:
https://doi.org/10.14241/asgp.2020.07
Abstract: A new ichnosite in southwest Lesotho (Upper Moyeni; Quthing District) is located within the uppermost part of the highly fossiliferous Elliot Formation, ~ 35 m below the conformably overlying Clarens Formation and ~ 65 m above the world-renowned Lower Moyeni ichnosite. While the Lower Moyeni site preserves diverse Early Jurassic ichnofossils, the ichnites at the Upper Moyeni comprise one vertebrate burrow and ~ 50 tridactyl tracks with footprint lengths between 15 and 51 cm. Many of the tracks preserve digital pad impressions, claw marks and displacement rims, all related to substrate conditions. The morphometric parameters of the Upper Moyeni tracks are consistent with Grallator, Eubrontes and Kayentapus. Several larger tracks with footprint lengths > 40 cm are Kayentapus-like and Eubrontes-like, and are comparable to previously described very large theropods tracks with lengths > 50 cm from the uppermost Elliot and Clarens Formations. Based on sedimentological and ichnological evidence, the Upper Moyeni ichnofossils were formed in a palaeolandscape with small rivers and shallow lakes by burrowing tetrapods and a variety of bipedal dinosaurs (theropods), some of which were up to 7–8 m in body length. The Upper Moyeni tracks together with the other very large tracks from coeval locations in southern Africa collectively highlight the tendency towards increasing diversity in size of tridactyl tracks, and by extension trackmaker body size, which runs in tandem to the increasing diversity of non-sauropod sauropodomorph body fossils in the Sinemurian-Pliensbachian of southern Gondwana.

Funding

This project was supported by grants to EMB (as PI) from the National Research Foundation Competitive Programme for Rated Researches and African Origins Programme (NRF GU 93544 and 98825) and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE in Palaeosciences). During the study LA, MA, MR and TH were recipients of postdoctoral and postgraduate funding, respectively, from the CoE in Palaeosciences. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish.

History