Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Cranial osteology of Suuwassea emilieae (Sauropoda: Diplodocoidea: Flagellicaudata) from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Montana, USA

2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1671/0272-4634(2006)26[88

1937-2809

Jerald D. Harris,

Evolution and Paleontology Studies

ABSTRACT Cranial elements of Suuwassea emilieae (Sauropoda: Diplodocoidea) from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Montana, U.S.A., represent one of only a few flagellicaudatan skulls known. Preserved elements include a left premaxilla, a fragment of right maxilla, a right squamosal, a right quadrate, a basicranium and skull roof lacking only the rostral end of the frontals, basipterygoid processes, and parasphenoid rostrum. Autapomorphic features of the skull include: premaxillary teeth projecting parallel to long axis of premaxilla; single optic nerve foramen; postparietal foramen present and larger than parietal foramen; supraoccipital with elongate ventral process contributing little to dorsal margin of foramen magnum; basioccipital not contributing to floor of median condylar incisure; and antotic processes with no dorsal contact with frontals. The basicranium more closely resembles that of Apatosaurus rather than Diplodocus and is also unlike the skull of Dicraeosaurus, despite its possession of a similar postparietal foramen, a feature unique among Morrison Formation sauropods. Pending reanalysis of Tornieria africana, which also possesses it, the postparietal foramen must be viewed as a symplesiomorphic retention in the Dicraeosauridae, with its loss a synapomorphy of the Diplodocidae, or at least of the North American members of the latter clade.