April 5, 2016

The Cherves-de-Cognac site (Charente, France) has yielded a diverse continental microvertebrate fauna of Berriasian (earliest Cretaceous) age. Dinosaur remains are rare, but include three teeth that are referrable to an indeterminate sauropod, which might represent either a titanosauriform, a non-titanosauriform macronarian or a nonneosauropod. The small size of these teeth (with a maximum length of 3 mm, as preserved) and the almost complete absence of emanel wrinkling suggests that they pertained to embryonic or hatchling individuals. The Cherves-de-Cognac sauropod represents a rare occurrence of sauropod embryos/hatchlings, a new sauropod record from the poorly-known terrestrial Berriasian and another possible instance of the persistence of non-diplodocoid, non-titanosauriform sauropods into the Cretaceous.

Paul M. Barrett, Joane Pouech, Jean-Michel Mazin, and Fiona M. Jones (2016)
Teeth of embryonic or hatchling sauropods from the Berriasian (Early Cretaceous) of Cherves-de-Cognac, France.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica (in press)
doi:http: // dx.doi.org/10.4202/app.00257.2016