Huadanosaurus and Sinosauropteryx lingyuanensis, new compsognathid-like theropods from Lower Cretaceous of China (free pdf)

[Ben Creisler]

Ben Creisler

bcre...@gmail.com

A new paper:

Free pdf:

Huadanosaurus sinensis gen. et sp. nov.
Sinosauropteryx lingyuanensis sp. nov.

 
Rui Qiu, Xiaolin Wang, Shunxing Jiang, Jin Meng & Zhonghe Zhou (2025)
Two new compsognathid-like theropods show diversified predation strategies in theropod dinosaurs
National Science Review, nwaf068
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaf068
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaf068/8030555


The Compsognathidae was originally considered an early-diverging clade of coelurosaur theropods. However, recent study suggests that Compsognathidae is not monophyletic. Here, we describe two new compsognathid-like species, Sinosauropteryx lingyuanensis sp. nov. and Huadanosaurus sinensis gen. et sp. nov. from the Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation of Dawangzhangzi (Lingyuan, western Liaoning, China). The phylogenetic results indicate that all compsognathid-like theropods from the Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota form a monophyletic group Sinosauropterygidae nested among early-diverging coelurosaurs. Morphological comparison between various species of sinosauropterygids from the Early Cretaceous of Northeast China, combined with the phylogenetic results, suggests that at least three distinct hunting strategies were present among coeval species. The diversification of theropods should be attributed to the landscape caused by the North China craton destruction.

[Mickey Mortimer]

A few thoughts...

Qiu et al.'s Figure 3a, the results of their TWiG analysis, have Compsognathus in their Sinosauropterygidae, which obviously cannot be.

The maxilla and lacrimal of Huadanosaurus in their Figure 3c look like 'Sinosauropteryx sp.' NGMC 2124- https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisznFfNVWf25CqY8GD9F202AbeV0X0L5jsq2fKisJ3Zod9Q1sZU8Eu9aA1teTsrc9R8xZMoX8km6aWXNIY2JFULThKvzwXENk6emGH7LRRoHiuxAntLboUqC8ekMYRMW_aBkhDmSJiC4I/s1600/Sinosauropteryx+skull.jpg . Note too Cau's recent blog post questioned whether Huadanosaurus is a juvenile Yutyrannus, and NGMC 2124 has a dorsally expanded quadratojugal like tyrannosaurids...

Note both of these specimens have been published previously, though the authors don't mention it. Sinosauropteryx lingyuanensis was the subject of Lingham-Soliar et al. (2007), while Huadanosaurus was called Sinosauropteryx in Zhang et al. (2010).

Did nobody even try when drawing the skulls in Figure 3? I love how going from d to c to b, the articulation with the neck gets higher and higher. D? That's about right. C? Going through the supraoccipital. B? Hope your nuchal crest has a foramen magnum. The specimen numbers of c and d are flipped, btw.

Needless to say I'm not optimistic about this paper's accuracy.

Mickey Mortimer

References- Lingham-Soliar, Feduccia and Wang, 2007. A new Chinese specimen indicates that 'protofeathers' in the Early Cretaceous theropod dinosaur Sinosauropteryx are degraded collagen fibres. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 274, 1823-1829.

Zhang, Kearns, Orr, Benton, Zhou, Johnson, Xu and Wang, 2010. Fossilized melanosomes and the colour of Cretaceous dinosaurs and birds. Nature. 463, 1075-1078.

[Ben Creisler]

A comment:

Free pdf:

Christophe Hendrickx (2025)
Comment on “Two new compsognathid-like theropods show diversified predation strategies of theropod dinosaurs” by Qiu et al.
National Science Review, nwaf131
doi:  https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwaf131
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaf131/8104278

 
"An alternative hypothesis is that the two newly described species possibly represent juvenile tyrannosauroids such as those of the large-bodied (9-10 m) and most certainly mature Sinotyrannus and Yutyrannus..."