Joan Wiffen's theropod

Reconstruction of Joan Wiffen's Theropod based on possibly related species Australovenator

Joan Wiffen's theropod is an unidentified theropod dinosaur that was found by Joan Wiffen in Cretaceous rocks of New Zealand in the Mangahouanga Stream. Only a tail vertebra was found, and this was thought to be from a type of allosaur, because the tail vertebra resembled it most.

Description

Based on the vertebra, Joan Wiffen's theropod was thought to be approximately four to five meters in length (maximum length of 15 feet) long, and like most theropods it would have been bipedal and carnivorous. Because of the few fossils, it is hard to determine what species of dinosaur is, although Wiffen considered it possibly a megalosaurid, at the time a poorly defined group of unspecialized large carnivorous dinosaurs. The vertebra was described by Molnar (1981), and is considered an indeterminate theropod by Agnolin et al. (2010).[1][2]

Paleoecology

In the time of Joan Wiffen's theropod, the continent Tasmantis had split off from Gondwana, meaning that this theropod dinosaur must have been unique to NZ, which scientists believe was much closer to the South Pole. It was mostly jungle. The New Zealand theropod existed with Joan Wiffen's sauropod and an unidentified type of pterosaur.[3] Apart from this, not much is known.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Molnar,R.E.1981.AdinosaurfromNewZealand.Pp.91–96in M.M.Cresswell&P.Vella(eds)GondwanaFive:Proceeding of the Fifth International Gondwanan Symposium. Wellington. A. A., Balkema, Rotterdam.
  2. ↑ Agnolin, F.L., Ezcurra, M.D., Pais, D.F. and Salisbury, S.W. (2010). "A reappraisal of the Cretaceous non-avian dinosaur faunas from Australia and New Zealand: Evidence for their Gondwanan affinities." Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 8(2): 257-300
  3. ↑ Molnar,R.E.&Wiffen,J.2007.Apresumedtitanosaurianvertebra from the late Cretaceous of North Island, New Zealand. P. 174 in A. W. A. Kellner, D. D. R. Henriques, & T. Rodrigues (eds)IICongressoLatino-AmericanodePaleontologia,Boletim de Resumos.
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