Oldřich Fejfar

Martin KošťÃ¡k, Jiří Kvaček, Michal Moučka

Academic paper

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

50

2

295-300

We describe the first dinosaur skeletal remains found in the Czech Republic, consisting of one complete femur and inde− terminable bone fragments. They were recovered from the upper Cenomanian near−shore marine sediments deposited on the slopes of an ancient archipelago, several kilometres north of the larger Rhenish−Bohemian Island that was situated in what is now the middle of Europe. Sediments yielding dinosaur remains are of late Cenomanian age, Inoceramus pictus–I. pictus bohemicus inoceramid zone of the local lithostratigraphic unit, the Peruc−Korycany Formation. These are the first uncontested dinosaurian fossils reported from this formation and also the first Cenomanian dinosaur record in Central Europe. They document a small ornithopod belonging to an iguanodontid species comparable with similar Late Cretaceous European forms. The herbivorous dinosaur lived among a vegetation transitional between salt marsh flora, with abundant halophytic conifer Frenelopsis alata; and an alluvial plain assemblage dominated by lauroid angiosperms.

Dinosauria, Iguanodontidae, palaeoenvironment, vegetation, Cenomanian, Bohemian Cretaceous Basin, Czech Republic, Europe.

English