Charonosaurus jiayinensis n.g., n.sp.,a lambeosaurine dinosaur from the Late Maastrichtian of northeastern ChinaCharonosaurus jiayinensis n.g., n.sp., un dinosaure lambéosauriné du Maastrichtien supérieur du Nord-Est de la Chine.

Philippe Taquet
https://doi.org/10.1016/S1251-8050(00)00214-7Get rights and content

Abstract

Large bonebeds have been excavated in the Late Maastrichian Yuliangze Formation near Jiayin (Heilongjang Province, northeastern China). The greatest part of the discovered fossils belong to a new lambeosaurine dinosaur, Charonosaurus jiayinensis n.g., n.sp. Phylogenetic analysis, based on 33 cranial, dental and postcranial characters, indicates that this new taxon may be closer to Parasaurolophus than any other known Lambeosaurinae. The Late Maastrichtian dinosaur faunas currently known in northeastern Asia are dominated by Lambeosaurinae, although these dinosaurs are not represented any more in synchronous North American and European localities.

Résumé

De grands bonebeds ont été fouillés dans la formation de Yuliangze près de Jiayin (province du Heilongjang, Chine du Nord-Est). La grande majorité des fossiles découverts appartiennent à un nouveau dinosaure lambéosauriné, Charonosaurus jiayinenis n.g., n.sp. Une analyse phylogénétique basée sur 33 caractères crâniens, dentaires et postcrâniens indique que ce nouveau taxon semble plus proche de Parasaurolophus que de tout autre lambéosauriné connu. Les faunes du Maastrichtien supérieur connues à ce jour en Asie du Nord-Est sont dominées par des lambéosaurinés, alors que ces dinosaures ne sont plus représentés dans les gisements contemporains d’Amérique du Nord et d’Europe.

Introduction

During the summers of 1916 and 1917, the Russian Geological Committee undertook two excavation campaigns along the right side of the Amur River, which forms the western border between Russia and China, in the vicinity of Jiayin (Heilongjang Province, P.R. China, figure 1). The finds included a series of dinosaur bones, named Mandschurosaurus amurensis [19] and referred to the family Hadrosauridae. This species is now unanimously regarded as a nomen dubium, because of the scarcity of the material and of the absence of any diagnostical element. Moreover, as admitted by Riabinin [20] himself, the holotype skeleton is clearly reconstructed from several individuals. This skeleton is so heavily restored that it is currently impossible to distinguish the real bone from plaster restoration. From the same locality, Riabinin [21] also decribed a very fragmentary ischium, presumed to belong to a hadrosaur, under the name Saurolophus krystofovici: this is of course also clearly a nomen dubium. Since 1975, several Chinese institutions have undertaken new excavations near Jiayin and discovered many new hadrosaurian fossils in a limited area. The fossils form large bonebeds extending over several tens of square metres. The disarticulated skeletons of numerous animals are completely mixed together, the apophyses and neural arches of the vertebrae are broken off and the long bones indicate a preferential direction. It is therefore clear that the carcasses of the dinosaurs accumulated in a fluvial environment, with relatively important currents. The fossil assemblage is dominated by lambeosaurine dinosaurs (about 90 % of the discovered bones), along with theropod, ankylosaurian, crocodile and turtle isolated bones. Although both juvenile and adult specimens are represented, the lambeosaurine sample from Jiayin is particularly homogeneous and there is currently no reason to consider that more than one lambeosaurine coexisted in this limited area. The abundance of theropod resorbed teeth indicates either that the lambeosaurines were killed by predators along the river, or that their carcasses were eaten and dismembered by scavengers.

Preliminary study of the abundant mega- and palynoflora of the Yuliangze Formation [27], [28], [29] indicates that it belongs to the Wodehouseia spinataAquilapollenites subtilis palynozone, recognized in several regions of south-eastern Russia [14], [15]. The abundance of Wodehouseia spinata speaks for a Late Maastrichtian age for the Yuliangze Formation, as this species is regarded as a good biostratigraphic indicator for typical Late Maastrichtian (‘Lancian’) formations in North America, such as the Scollart Formation in Alberta [22], the Lance Formation in Wyoming [11], the Hell Creek Formation in Montana and the Dakotas [9], the Laramie, Arapahoe and the lower part of the Denver Formations in Colorado [17].

Section snippets

Systematic palaeontology

Ornithopoda Marsh, 1881

Hadrosauridae Cope, 1869

Lambeosaurinae Parks, 1923

Charonosaurus, n. gen.

Etymology. Charon, boatswain of Styx River in Greek and Roman mythology; sauros (Greek), lizard.

Type species. Charonosaurus jiayinensis, n. sp.

Charonosaurus jiayinensis, n. sp.

Etymology. Jiayinensis, from the type locality Jiayin.

Holotype. CUST J-V1251-57 (Changchun University of Sciences and technology), a partial skull.

Referred material. Collections CUST J-III and J-V; GMH Hlj-16, 77, 87, 101, 140,

Phylogenetic analysis

In order to clarify the phylogenetic relationships of Charonosaurus, a cladistic analysis was performed on a 33-character dataset (see appendix, for the list of characters), using Hennig 86 software [7]. The resulting character-taxon matrix is shown in the table. Characters that cannot be directly observed on the available Charonosaurus material have been left out. We also excluded the controversial ‘lambeosaurine’ Tsintaosaurus Young, 1958 [30] and Eolambia Kirkland, 1998 [10] from this

Palaeobiogeographical implications

In northeastern Asia, other Late Maastrichtian localities have yielded lambeosaurine fossils: Blagoveschensk and Kundur, in the Russian Amur region (see figure 1), and Toyohara-Gun in Sakhalin Island. Markevitch and Bugdaeva [15] show that these three fossil localities also belong to the same Wodehouseia spinataAquilapollenites subtilis palynozone and are consequently strictly synchronous to the Jiayin locality. As at Jiayin, the large bonebeds discovered at Blagoveschensk and Kundur are

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Xing Yuling (Geological Museum of Heilongjang), Sun Chang Qing (Heilongjang Provincial Museum) and Y. Bolotsky (Amur KNII, Blagoveschensk) for access to material in their care. Li Hong, Yang Hujuan and Dong Zhi-Ming kindly facilitated P.G.’s journey in Heilongjang Province. Ann Wauters, Chen Chang-Jung and H. De Potter realized the drawings for this paper. This work was supported by the Belgian Prime Minister’s Office of Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs and by a FNRS

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