Titanosaur dinosaur infected by parasites

From New Scientist:

Ancient parasites in a titanosaur’s bones made it look like a zombie

20 November 2020

By Joshua Rapp Learn

Some of the oldest evidence of bone disease may have been caused by tiny 83-million-year-old parasites infecting a titanosaur, which are among the largest land animals that ever lived. This is the first discovery of parasites in a dinosaur bone.

“It’s a new kind of parasite,” says Aline Ghilardi at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. “We don’t have anything similar to it.”

This fossilised parasite was seen in a sample from a dwarf titanosaur.

Rubeosaurus, Styracosaurus, same dinosaur species?

This 13 November 2020 video says about itself:

Was “Rubeosaurus” Styracosaurus After All? YDAW Synapisode #6

New research came out this year with bearing upon everyone’s favorite centrosaurine(s), so here’s more than you probably wanted to know about parietals.

Dinosaur age mammals’ social life, new research

From the University of Washington in the USA:

New study finds earliest evidence for mammal social behavior

November 2, 2020

A new study led by paleontologists at the University of Washington and its Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture indicates that the earliest evidence of mammal social behavior goes back to the Age of Dinosaurs.

The evidence, published Nov. 2 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, lies in the fossil record of a new genus of multituberculate — a small, rodent-like mammal that lived during the Late Cretaceous of the dinosaur era — called Filikomys primaevus, which translates to “youthful, friendly mouse.” The fossils are the most complete mammal fossils ever found from the Mesozoic in North America. They indicate that F. primaevus engaged in multi-generational, group-nesting and burrowing behavior, and possibly lived in colonies. Study co-authors — including lead author Luke Weaver, a UW graduate student in biology, and senior author Gregory Wilson Mantilla, a UW professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum — analyzed several fossils, all about 75.5 million years old, and extracted from a well-known dinosaur nesting site called Egg Mountain in western Montana.

Fossil skulls and skeletons of at least 22 individuals of F. primaevus were discovered at Egg Mountain, typically clustered together in groups of two to five, with at least 13 individuals found within a 30 square-meter area in the same rock layer. Based on how well preserved the fossils are, the type of rock they’re preserved in, and F. primaevus’ powerful shoulders and elbows — which are similar to today’s living burrowing animals — Weaver, Wilson Mantilla and co-authors hypothesize these animals lived in burrows and were nesting together. Furthermore, the animals found were a mixture of multiple mature adults and young adults, suggesting these were truly social groups as opposed to just parents raising their young.

“It was crazy finishing up this paper right as the stay-at-home orders were going into effect — here we all are trying our best to socially distance and isolate, and I’m writing about how mammals were socially interacting way back when dinosaurs were still roaming the Earth!” said Weaver. “It is really powerful, I think, to see just how deeply rooted social interactions are in mammals. Because humans are such social animals, we tend to think that sociality is somehow unique to us, or at least to our close evolutionary relatives, but now we can see that social behavior goes way further back in the mammalian family tree. Multituberculates are one of the most ancient mammal groups, and they’ve been extinct for 35 million years, yet in the Late Cretaceous they were apparently interacting in groups similar to what you would see in modern-day ground squirrels.”

Previously, scientists thought social behavior in mammals first emerged after the mass extinction that killed off the dinosaurs, and mostly in the Placentalia — the group of mammals humans belong to, which all carry the fetus in the mother’s uterus until a late stage of development. But these fossils show mammals were socializing during the Age of Dinosaurs, and in an entirely different and more ancient group of mammals — the multituberculates.

“These fossils are game-changers,” said Wilson Mantilla. “As paleontologists working to reconstruct the biology of mammals from this time period, we’re usually stuck staring at individual teeth and maybe a jaw that rolled down a river, but here we have multiple, near-complete skulls and skeletons preserved in the exact place where the animals lived. We can now credibly look at how mammals really interacted with dinosaurs and other animals that lived at this time.”

New mosasaur species discovery in Morocco

This 8 October 2020 video is called New species of mosasaur discovered in Morocco, more than 66 MILLION years ago.

From the University of Alberta in Canada:

Paleontologists identify new species of mosasaur

Ancient lizard’s long, crocodile-like snout suggests it carved out a niche in a competitive marine ecosystem

October 7, 2020

A new species of an ancient marine reptile evolved to strike terror into the hearts of the normally safe, fast-swimming fish has been identified by a team of University of Alberta researchers, shedding light on what it took to survive in highly competitive ecosystems.

Gavialimimus almaghribensis, a new type of mosasaur, was catalogued and named by an international research team led by master’s student Catie Strong, who performed the research a year ago as part of an undergrad honours thesis guided by vertebrate paleontologist Michael Caldwell, professor in the Faculty of Science, along with collaborators from the University of Cincinnati and Flinders University.

More than a dozen types of mosasaur — which can reach 17 metres in length and resemble an overgrown komodo dragon — ruled over the marine environment in what is now Morocco at the tail end of the Late Cretaceous period between 72 and 66 million years ago.

What differentiates Strong’s version, however, is that it features a long, narrow snout and interlocking teeth — similar to the crocodilian gharials, a relative of crocodiles and alligators.

Strong said this discovery adds a layer of clarity to a diverse picture seemingly overcrowded with mega-predators all competing for food, space and resources.

“Its long snout reflects that this mosasaur was likely adapted to a specific form of predation, or niche partitioning, within this larger ecosystem.”

Strong explained there is evidence that each species of the giant marine lizard shows adaptations for different prey items or styles of predation.

“For some species, these adaptations can be very prominent, such as the extremely long snout and the interlocking teeth in Gavialimimus, which we hypothesized as helping it to catch rapidly moving prey,” she said.

She added another distinctive species would be Globidens simplex — described last year by the Caldwell lab — which has stout, globular teeth adapted for crushing hard prey like shelled animals.

“Not all of the adaptations in these dozen or so species are this dramatic, and in some cases there may have been some overlap in prey items, but overall there is evidence that there’s been diversification of these species into different niches,” Strong noted.

Alternatively, the main contrasting hypothesis would be a scenario of more direct competition among species. Strong said given the anatomical differences among these mosasaurs, though, the idea of niche partitioning seems more consistent with the anatomy of these various species.

“This does help give another dimension to that diversity and shows how all of these animals living at the same time in the same place were able to branch off and take their own paths through evolution to be able to coexist like that,” she said.

The remains of the G. almaghribensis included a metre-long skull and some isolated bones. There was nothing to explain the cause of death of the specimen, which was uncovered in a phosphate mine in Morocco that is rich in fossils.

“Morocco is an incredibly good place to find fossils, especially in these phosphate mines,” Strong said. “Those phosphates themselves reflect sediments that would have been deposited in marine environments, so there are a lot of mosasaurs there.”

New dinosaur species discovered in Mongolia

This 7 October 2020 video is called Newly discovered species of toothless, two-fingered dinosaur thrived more than 68 million years ago.

From the University of Edinburgh in Scotland:

Toothless dino’s lost digits point to spread of parrot-like species

October 6, 2020

A newly discovered species of toothless, two-fingered dinosaur has shed light on how a group of parrot-like animals thrived more than 68 million years ago.

The unusual species had one less finger on each forearm than its close relatives, suggesting an adaptability which enabled the animals to spread during the Late Cretaceous Period, researchers say.

Multiple complete skeletons of the new species were unearthed in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia by a University of Edinburgh-led team.

Named Oksoko avarsan, the feathered, omnivorous creatures grew to around two metres long and had only two functional digits on each forearm. The animals had a large, toothless beak similar to the type seen in species of parrot today.

The remarkably well-preserved fossils provided the first evidence of digit loss in the three-fingered family of dinosaurs known as oviraptors.

The discovery that they could evolve forelimb adaptations suggests the group could alter their diets and lifestyles, and enabled them to diversify and multiply, the team says.

Researchers studied the reduction in size, and eventual loss, of a third finger across the oviraptors’ evolutionary history. The group’s arms and hands changed drastically in tandem with migrations to new geographic areas — specifically to what is now North America and the Gobi Desert.

The team also discovered that Oksoko avarsan — like many other prehistoric species — were social as juveniles. The fossil remains of four young dinosaurs were preserved resting together.

The study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, was funded by The Royal Society and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada. It also involved researchers from the University of Alberta and Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum in Canada, Hokkaido University in Japan, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.

Dr Gregory Funston, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said: “Oksoko avarsan is interesting because the skeletons are very complete and the way they were preserved resting together shows that juveniles roamed together in groups. But more importantly, its two-fingered hand prompted us to look at the way the hand and forelimb changed throughout the evolution of oviraptors — which hadn’t been studied before. This revealed some unexpected trends that are a key piece in the puzzle of why oviraptors were so diverse before the extinction that killed the dinosaurs.”

New mosasaur genus discovered

From Utah State University in the USA:

Jaws of death: Paleontologist renames giant, prehistoric marine lizard

September 23, 2020

Summary: Paleontologists describe a new genus of mosasaur, Gnathomortis stadtmani, a marine lizard that roamed the oceans of North America toward the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.

Some 92 to 66 million years ago, as the Age of Dinosaurs waned, giant marine lizards called mosasaurs roamed an ocean that covered North America from Utah to Missouri and Texas to the Yukon. The air-breathing predators were streamlined swimmers that devoured almost everything in their path, including fish, turtles, clams and even smaller mosasaurs.

Coloradoan Gary Thompson discovered mosasaur bones near the Delta County town of Cedaredge in 1975, which the teen reported to his high school science teacher. The specimens made their way to Utah’s Brigham Young University, where, in 1999, the creature that left the fossils was named Prognathodon stadtmani.

“I first learned of this discovery while doing background research for my Ph.D.,” says newly arrived Utah State University Eastern paleontologist Joshua Lively, who recently took the reins as curator of the Price campus’ Prehistoric Museum. “Ultimately, parts of this fossil, which were prepared since the original description in 1999, were important enough to become a chapter in my 2019 doctoral dissertation.”

Upon detailed research of the mosasaur’s skeleton and a phylogenetic analysis, Lively determined the BYU specimen is not closely related to other species of the genus Prognathodon and needed to be renamed. He reclassified the mosasaur as Gnathomortis stadtmani and reports his findings in the most recent issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

His research was funded by the Geological Society of America, the Evolving Earth Foundation, the Texas Academy of Science and the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin.

“The new name is derived from Greek and Latin words for ‘jaws of death,'” Lively says. “It was inspired by the incredibly large jaws of this specimen, which measure four feet (1.2 meters) in length.”

An interesting feature of Gnathomortis’ mandibles, he says, is a large depression on their outer surface, similar to that seen in modern lizards, such as the Collared Lizard. The feature is indicative of large jaw muscles that equipped the marine reptile with a formidable biteforce.

“What sets this animal apart from other mosasaurs are features of the quadrate — a bone in the jaw joint that also forms a portion of the ear canal,” says Lively, who returned to the fossil’s Colorado discovery site and determined the age interval of rock, in which the specimen was preserved.

“In Gnathomortis, this bone exhibits a suite of characteristics that are transitional from earlier mosasaurs, like Clidastes, and later mosasaurs, like Prognathodon. We now know Gnathomortis swam in the seas of Colorado between 79 and 81 million years ago, or at least 3.5 million years before any species of Prognathodon.”

He says fossil enthusiasts can view Gnathomortis’ big bite at the BYU Museum of Paleontology in Provo, Utah, and see a cast of the skull at the Pioneer Town Museum in Cedaredge, Colorado. Reconstructions of the full skeleton are on display at the John Wesley Powell River History Museum in Green River, Utah, and in BYU’s Eyring Science Center.

“I’m excited to share this story, which represents years of effort by many citizen scientists and scholars, as I kick off my new position at USU Eastern’s Prehistoric Museum,” Lively says. “It’s a reminder of the power of curiosity and exploration by people of all ages and backgrounds.”

World’s oldest, dinosaur age, animal sperm discovery

This 17 September 2020 video says about itself:

100 Million-Year-Old Sperm Is The Oldest Ever Found. And It’s Giant

The oldest known sperm in the world has been discovered, locked in a piece of amber that solidified when behemoths like Spinosaurus dominated the Earth.

From Queen Mary University of London in England:

World’s oldest animal sperm found in tiny crustaceans trapped in Myanmar amber

September 16, 2020

An international collaboration between researchers at Queen Mary University of London and the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing has led to the discovery of world’s oldest animal sperm inside a tiny crustacean trapped in amber around 100 million years ago in Myanmar.

The research team, led by Dr He Wang of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing, found the sperm in a new species of crustacean they named Myanmarcypris hui. They predict that the animals had sex just before their entrapment in the piece of amber (tree resin), which formed in the Cretaceous period.

Fossilised sperm are exceptionally rare; previously the oldest known examples were only 17 million years old. Myanmarcypris hui is an ostracod, a kind of crustacean that has existed for 500 million years and lives in all kinds of aquatic environments from deep oceans to lakes and rivers. Their fossil shells are common and abundant but finding specimens preserved in ancient amber with their appendages and internal organs intact provides a rare and exciting opportunity to learn more about their evolution.

Professor Dave Horne, Professor of Micropalaeontology at Queen Mary University of London said: “Analyses of fossil ostracod shells are hugely informative about past environments and climates, as well as shedding light on evolutionary puzzles, but exceptional occurrences of fossilised soft parts like this result in remarkable advances in our understanding.”

During the Cretaceous period in what is now Myanmar, the ostracods were probably living in a coastal lagoon fringed by trees where they became trapped in a blob of tree resin. The Kachin amber of Myanmar has previously yielded outstanding finds including frogs, snakes and a feathered dinosaur tail. Bo Wang, also of the Chinese Academy of Science in Nanjing added: “Hundreds of new species have been described in the past five years, and many of them have made evolutionary biologists re-consider long-standing hypotheses on how certain lineages developed and how ecological relationships evolved.”

The study, published in Royal Society Proceedings B, also has implications for understanding the evolutionary history of an unusual mode of sexual reproduction involving “giant sperm.”

The new ostracod finds may be extremely small but in one sense they are giants. Males of most animals (including humans) typically produce tens of millions of really small sperm in very large quantities, but there are exceptions. Some tiny fruit flies (insects) and ostracods (crustaceans) are famous for investing in quality rather than quantity: relatively small numbers of “giant” sperm that are many times longer than the animal itself, a by-product of evolutionary competition for reproductive success. The new discovery is not only by far the oldest example of fossil sperm ever found but also shows that these ostracods had already evolved giant sperm, and specially-adapted organs to transfer them from male to female, 100 million years ago.

Each ostracod is less than a millimetre long. Using X-ray microscopy the team made computer-aided 3-D reconstructions of the ostracods embedded in the amber, revealing incredible detail. “The results were amazing — not only did we find their tiny appendages to be preserved inside their shells, we could also see their reproductive organs,” added He Wang. “But when we identified the sperm inside the female, and knowing the age of the amber, it was one of those special Eureka-moments in a researcher’s life.”

Wang’s team found adult males and females but it was a female specimen that contained the sperm, indicating that it must have had sex shortly before becoming trapped in the amber. The reconstructions also revealed the distinctive muscular sperm pumps and penises (two of each) that male ostracods use to inseminate the females, who store them in bag-like receptacles until eggs are ready to be fertilised.

Such extensive adaptation raises the question of whether reproduction with giant sperms can be an evolutionarily-stable character. “To show that using giant sperms in reproduction is not an extinction-doomed extravagance of evolution, but a serious long-term advantage for the survival of a species, we need to know when they first appeared” says co-author Dr Renate Matzke-Karasz of Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.

This new evidence of the persistence of reproduction with giant sperm for a hundred million years shows it to be a highly successful reproductive strategy that evolved only once in this group — quite impressive for a trait that demands such a substantial investment from both males and females, especially when you consider that many ostracods can reproduce asexually, without needing males at all. “Sexual reproduction with giant sperm must be very advantageous” says Matzke-Karasz.

Sauropod dinosaurs had rhino-like horns, embryos show

This 2016 video from the American Museum of Natural History in the USA says about itself:

Measuring 122 feet, the Museum’s new exhibit, The Titanosaur, is big–so big that its head extends outside of the Museum’s fourth-floor gallery where it is now on permanent display.

This species of dinosaur, a giant herbivore that belongs to a group known as titanosaurs, is so new that it has not yet been formally named by the paleontologists who discovered it. The Titanosaur lived in the forests of today’s Patagonia about 100 to 95 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous period, and weighed 70 tons. It is one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered.

The fossils on which this cast is based were excavated in the Patagonian desert region of Argentina by a team from the Museo Paleontologico Egidio Feruglio led by José Luis Carballido and Diego Pol, who received his Ph.D. at the American Museum of Natural History.

In this video, Dr. Mark Norell, chair and Macaulay Curator in the Division of Paleontology, describes how such a massive animal could have supported its own weight and why the Titanosaur is one of the more spectacular finds during what he describes as “the golden age of paleontology.”

From the University of Manchester in England:

Newly discovered rare dinosaur embryos show sauropods had rhino-like horns

August 27, 2020

An incredibly rare dinosaur embryo discovered perfectly preserved inside its egg has shown scientists new details of the development and appearance of sauropods which lived 80 million years ago.

Sauropods were the giant herbivores made famous as being ‘veggie-saurs’ in the 1993 film Jurassic Park. The incredible new find of an intact embryo has shown for the first time that these dinosaurs had stereoscopic vision and a horn on the front of the face which was then lost in adulthood.

The international research team say that this is the most complete and articulate skull known from any titanosaur, the last surviving group of long-necked sauropods and largest land animals known to have ever existed.

The sauropod egg was discovered in Patagonia, Argentina, in an area not previously known to provide evidence of dinosaur fossils. It was imperative the egg was repatriated to Argentina however as it is illegal to permanently remove fossils from the country.

Dr John Nudds from The University of Manchester said: “The preservation of embryonic dinosaurs preserved inside their eggs is extremely rare. Imagine the huge sauropods from Jurassic Park and consider that the tiny skulls of their babies, still inside their eggs, are just a couple of centimetres long.

“We were able to reconstruct the embryonic skull prior to hatching. The embryos possessed a specialised craniofacial anatomy that precedes the post-natal transformation of the skull in adult sauropods. Part of the skull of these embryonic sauropods was extended into an elongated snout or horn, so that they possessed a peculiarly shaped face.”

The examination of the amazing specimen enabled the team to revise opinions of how babies of these giant dinosaurs may be hatched and to test previously held ideas about sauropodomorph reproduction. The elongated horn is now thought to have been used as an ‘egg tooth’ on hatching to allow babies to break through their shell.

The findings, published today in Current Biology, were the result of a novel technique to reveal embryonic dinosaurs in their shells. The embryo within the egg was revealed by carefully dissolving the egg around it using an acid preparation. The team were then able to perform a virtual dissection of the specimen at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble.

Sauropod embryology remains one of the least explored areas of the life history of dinosaurs. The first definitive discovery of sauropod embryos came with the finding of an enormous nesting ground of titanosaurian dinosaurs discovered in Upper Cretaceous deposits of northern Patagonia, Argentina, 25 years ago. This new discovery however, is the first time a fully intact embryo has been able to be studied.

Other eggs were also found at the Argentinian site which the scientists now aim to examine in a similar fashion. It is thought that some of the eggs could contain well-preserved dinosaur skin which could help further piece together the mysteries of some of the most fascinating animals to ever walk the Earth.

Dinosaur age turtle and its invertebrate guests

This March 2018 video is called The Evolution of Turtles.

From Waseda University in Japan:

Life in a nutshell: New species found in the carapace of late Cretaceous marine turtle

August 25, 2020

Summary: Scientists have identified a new ichnospecies from the shell of an extinct marine turtle fossil, the first known species coexisting on living marine vertebrates.

While paleontologists have a wealth of vertebrate fossils at their disposal, their knowledge of the ecology of ancient extinct species, particularly regarding their relationship with invertebrate species, is relatively poor. As bones and hard shells “fossilize” much better than soft tissues and cartilage, scientists are limited in their ability to infer the presence of parasitic or symbiotic organisms living in or on these ancient vertebrates. As a result, relatively little is known about the evolutionary relationships between these ancient “clades” and their modern descendants.

All hope is not lost, though, as researchers can infer the presence of these small organisms from the footprints they left behind. These records are called trace fossils, or ichnofossils. One clear example of such ichnofossils is the boreholes that many mollusks make in the turtle shell remains and whale and fish bones on the ocean floor. However, to this date, there have been no indications that such species also lived in the shell while the turtle was alive and well.

In their recent study published in the journal Palaios, Assistant Professor Kei Sato from Waseda University and Associate Professor Robert G Jenkins from Kanazawa University focused on the trace evidence left on the carapace (shell) of an extinct basal leatherback marine turtle (Mesodermochelys sp.). The fossil was recovered from an Upper Cretaceous formation in Nio River, Japan, and the evidence in question were 43 tiny, flask-shaped boreholes all over the turtle shell fossil.

Eager to learn more about the organisms responsible for this, the scientists formulated a hypothesis, based on previous borehole evidence found on ancient marine turtle shells. After observing the fossil up close and measuring the morphological characteristics of the boreholes, they produced a 3-dimensional reconstruction of the carapace and the cross-section of one of the boreholes, which allowed them to observe the intricate details left by the species.

Sato, who is the lead author of this study, elaborates on the surprising evidence they found, “We saw that there were signs of healing around the mouth of boreholes, suggesting that the turtle was alive when the organisms settled on the carapace.” Based on the morphology and positioning of the boreholes, they determined that the likely culprits for these boreholes were “bivalves” from the superfamily Pholadoidea, creatures similar to the modern clams. These “sessile” (or immobile) organisms normally require a stable substrate to bore into, and the turtle carapace was a suitable host. The fact that the host animal was swimming around freely probably helped, as this allowed exposure to new environments.

Sato and Jenkins identified the boreholes called Karethraichnus; however, they were unable to match the characteristics of the boreholes they found with those made by any currently described species. This only meant one thing: that they had stumbled onto a completely new species! They have accordingly named this new species as Karethraichnus zaratan.

Sato is excited about the implications of their findings, stating, “This is the first study to report this unique behavior of boring bivalves as a symbiont of living marine vertebrate, which is a significant finding for the paleoecology and evolution of ancient boring bivalve clades.” Previously, no such species had been shown to live on the carapace of living vertebrates. Instead, they were often reported to occur on the remains of marine turtles and other vertebrates, laying on the ocean floor alongside various decomposing organisms. By attaching themselves on a live, free-swimming substrate, such as the carapace of a marine turtle, these pholadoid bivalves may have paved the way for a novel, yet-unknown evolutionary path of accessing previously unexplored niches and diversifying into new species. As the tracemaker bivalves of Karethraichnus zaratan are considered to belong to one of the basal groups for Pholadoidea, this knowledge is crucial for understanding the evolutionary history of extant organisms in this group.

New Isle of Wight, England, dinosaur discovery

This 13 August 2020 video says about itself:

A new species of dinosaur has been discovered in the UK! Four bones were found last year on a beach off England’s south coast and after careful examination, scientists now reckon it’s a new dino. It’s called the Vectaerovenator inopinatus, which translates to the air-filled hunter.

Researchers say it is a theropod dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period 115 million years ago which means it’s a relative of modern-day birds and arguably the most famous dino – the Tyrannosaurus rex! Researchers say they’re still learning more about the new species and are hoping for some more beachside discoveries to help them put the pieces together.

From the University of Southampton in England:

New species of dinosaur discovered on Isle of Wight

August 11, 2020

A new study by palaeontologists at the University of Southampton suggests four bones recently found on the Isle of Wight belong to new species of theropod dinosaur, the group that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and modern-day birds.

The dinosaur lived in the Cretaceous period 115 million years ago and is estimated to have been up to four metres long.

The bones were discovered on the foreshore at Shanklin last year and are from the neck, back and tail of the new dinosaur, which has been named Vectaerovenator inopinatus.

The name refers to the large air spaces in some of the bones, one of the traits that helped the scientists identify its theropod origins. These air sacs, also seen in modern birds, were extensions of the lung, and it is likely they helped fuel an efficient breathing system while also making the skeleton lighter.

The fossils were found over a period of weeks in 2019 in three separate discoveries, two by individuals and one by a family group, who all handed in their finds to the nearby Dinosaur Isle Museum at Sandown.

The scientific study has confirmed the fossils are very likely to be from the same individual dinosaur, with the exact location and timing of the finds adding to this belief.

Robin Ward, a regular fossil hunter from Stratford-upon-Avon, was with his family visiting the Isle of Wight when they made their discovery. He said: “The joy of finding the bones we discovered was absolutely fantastic. I thought they were special and so took them along when we visited Dinosaur Isle Museum. They immediately knew these were something rare and asked if we could donate them to the museum to be fully researched.”

James Lockyer, from Spalding, Lincolnshire was also visiting the Island when he found another of the bones. Also a regular fossil hunter, he said: “It looked different from marine reptile vertebrae I have come across in the past. I was searching a spot at Shanklin and had been told and read that I wouldn’t find much there. However, I always make sure I search the areas others do not, and on this occasion, it paid off.”

Paul Farrell, from Ryde, Isle of Wight, added: “I was walking along the beach, kicking stones and came across what looked like a bone from a dinosaur. I was really shocked to find out it could be a new species.”

After studying the four vertebrae, paleontologists from the University of Southampton confirmed that the bones are likely to belong to a genus of dinosaur previously unknown to science. Their findings will be published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology, in a paper co-authored by those who discovered the fossils.

Chris Barker, a PhD student at the university who led the study, said: “We were struck by just how hollow this animal was — it’s riddled with air spaces. Parts of its skeleton must have been rather delicate.

“The record of theropod dinosaurs from the ‘mid’ Cretaceous period in Europe isn’t that great, so it’s been really exciting to be able to increase our understanding of the diversity of dinosaur species from this time.

“You don’t usually find dinosaurs in the deposits at Shanklin as they were laid down in a marine habitat. You’re much more likely to find fossil oysters or driftwood, so this is a rare find indeed.”

It is likely that the Vectaerovenator lived in an area just north of where its remains were found, with the carcass having washed out into the shallow sea nearby.

Chris Barker added: “Although we have enough material to be able to determine the general type of dinosaur, we’d ideally like to find more to refine our analysis. We are very grateful for the donation of these fossils to science and for the important role that citizen science can play in palaeontology.”

The Isle of Wight is renowned as one of the top locations for dinosaur remains in Europe, and the new Vectaerovenator fossils will now go on display at the Dinosaur Isle Museum at Sandown, which houses an internationally important collection.

Museum curator, Dr Martin Munt, said: “This remarkable discovery of connected fossils by three different individuals and groups will add to the extensive collection we have and it’s great we can now confirm their significance and put them on display for the public to marvel at.

“We continue to undertake public field trips from the museum and would encourage anyone who finds unusual fossils to bring them in so we can take a closer look. However, fossil hunters should remember to stick to the foreshore, and avoid going near the cliffs which are among the most unstable on the Island.”

Isle of Wight Council Cabinet member for environment and heritage, Councillor John Hobart, said: “This is yet another terrific fossil find on the Island which sheds light on our prehistoric past — all the more so that it is an entirely new species. It will add to the many amazing items on display at the museum.”