Fossil Studies

New theropod tracks found in the Papo-Seco Formation (lower Barremian, Lusitanian Basin, Portugal) are presented. In 2022, thirteen theropod tracks were identified on the lowermost bed of this formation, preserved as natural cast infillings on the bedding surface. Two different morphotypes of theropod footprints have been identified, which occur at two different levels of this layer. The first morphotype, consisting of smaller footprints with narrow digits, is attributed to theropoda indet; the other morphotype, consisting only of one footprint, is assigned provisionally to the ichnogenus Megalosauripus isp. It is suggested that they were produced by medium-sized theropods, on a carbonate mud substrate, probably in a coastal environment associated with a lagoon. These tracks, and others previously described in the underlying Areia do Mastro Formation, suggest a temporal continuity of the groups of dinosaurs that frequented this area, during the early Barremian. However, the morphotypes now described differ from those of the theropods tracks from the Areia do Mastro Formation, which may indicate a change in faunal types within the theropod group.

During the Late Miocene, Bramatherium was the main representative of the giraffid subfamily Sivatheriinae in the Indian Subcontinent, with sparse and uncertain records from adjacent regions. In the present paper, we describe and compare two ossicones of the same individual, unearthed from the Upper Miocene site of Fourka in Chalkidiki Peninsula, Northern Greece, and attribute them with certain confidence to the species Bramatherium perimense. The definite record of Bramatherium so far away from the Indian Subcontinent and in close proximity to the well-known Pikermian sivatheriine Helladotherium duvernoyi enabled us to re-discuss both the intrageneric diversity of Bramatherium and the debatable Bramatherium–Helladotherium taxonomy. Our review allows us (i) to recognize only two Bramatherium species in Asia: the large-sized B. grande and the smaller B. perimense and (ii) to confirm and further support with morphological and biogeographic evidence the synonymy of Helladotherium with Bramatherium.

Coelacanths in the Family Mawsoniidae include ten genera with a primarily Gondwanan distribution. Two of the genera—Mawsonia and Axelrodichthys—show a related biogeographic pattern of occurrences in the Cretaceous of Brazil and Africa. This report documents the presence of Axelrodichthys in the Early Cretaceous of Niger based on a partial skull roof and partial extrascapular series from the Aptian ‘Fish Mountain’ site at Ingal (or Ingall) in central western Niger. Assignment of the specimen to Axelrodichthys is based on the presence of a median extrascapular along the posterior margin of the skull roof, an element that is absent in the sister-genus Mawsonia. This record from Niger fits into the broader pattern of the genus co-occurring in both northeastern Brazil and northwestern Africa, and then subsequently expanding its range across Africa during the Cretaceous—reaching Niger at an intermediate stage—and then eventually dispersing as far east as Madagascar and as far north as what is now southern Europe by the Late Cretaceous.