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Minisauripus

Dinosaur footprint

Dinosaur footprint

Minisauripus is an ichnogenus of theropod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous of East Asia. The trackmaker of Minisauripus would have been among the smallest known non-avian dinosaurs. This ichnogenus contains two named ichnospecies from China, M. chuanzhuensis and M. zhenshuonani, with several indeterminate ichnospecies known from China, South Korea and Japan.

Discovery

The type ichnospecies M. chuanzhuensis was first described in 1995 from the Early Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation of Sichuan, China. The second ichnospecies M. zhensuonani was described in 2008 from the Tianjialou Formation (Barremian-Albian) of Shandong, China. Trace fossils from the Haman Formation (Albian) of South Korea were referred to as M. cf. zhenshuonani or M. cf. chuanzhuensis.

Classification

About 95 tracks have been attributed to Minisauripus, and over 80% of them were less than 3 cm long. The abundance of such small footprints might suggest that the trackmaker of Minisauripus was a small non-avian theropod, not a juvenile of a larger taxon.

References

References

  1. (1995). "Dinosaur and bird footprints from the Lower Cretaceous of Emei County, Sichuan". Memoirs of the Beijing Natural History Museum.
  2. (2008). "''Minisauripus''―the track of a diminutive dinosaur from the Cretaceous of China and South Korea: implications for stratigraphic correlation and theropod foot morphodynamics". Cretaceous Research.
  3. (2016). "A new Minisauripus site from the Lower Cretaceous of China: Tracks of small adults or juveniles?". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
  4. (2019). "Exquisitely-preserved, high-definition skin traces in diminutive theropod tracks from the Cretaceous of Korea". Scientific Reports.
  5. (May 2019). "A diverse theropod footprint assemblage from the Lower Cretaceous Kitadani Formation, Tetori Group, central Japan". Cretaceous Research.
  6. (2018-11-15). "Smallest known raptor tracks suggest microraptorine activity in lakeshore setting". Scientific Reports.
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