Oldřich Fejfar

Martin Ko�ťák, 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