title: A New Oviraptorid Dinosaur (Dinosauria: Oviraptorosauria) from the Late Cretaceous of Southern China and Its Paleobiogeographical Implications.
abstract: The Ganzhou area of Jiangxi Province, southern China is becoming one of the most productive oviraptorosaurian localities in the world. A new oviraptorid dinosaur was unearthed from the uppermost Upper Cretaceous Nanxiong Formation of Ganzhou area. It is characterized by an anterodorsally sloping occiput and quadrate (a feature shared with Citipati), a circular supratemporal fenestra that is much smaller than the lower temporal fenestra, and a dentary in which the dorsal margin above the external mandibular fenestra is strongly concave ventrally. The position of the anteroventral corner of the external naris in relation to the posterodorsal corner of the antorbital fenestra provides new insight into the craniofacial evolution of oviraptorosaurid dinosaurs. A phylogenetic analysis recovers the new taxon as closely related to the Mongolian Citipati. Six oviraptorid dinosaurs from the Nanxiong Formation (Ganzhou and Nanxiong) are distributed within three clades of the family. Each of the three clades from the Nanxiong Formation has close relatives in Inner Mongolia and Mongolia, and in both places each clade may have had a specific diet or occupied a different ecological niche. Oviraptorid dinosaurs were geographically widespread across Asia in the latest Cretaceous and were an important component of terrestrial ecosystems during this time.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China; Key Lab of Stratigraphy and Paleontology, Ministry of Land and Resources of China, Beijing 100037, China.
authors.forename: Junchang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lü
authors.affiliation: Henan Geological Museum, Zhengzhou 450016, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Hanyong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pu
authors.affiliation: Hokkaido University Museum, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshitsugu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.affiliation: Henan Geological Museum, Zhengzhou 450016, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Henan Geological Museum, Zhengzhou 450016, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Huali
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Henan Geological Museum, Zhengzhou 450016, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Yuhua
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.affiliation: Henan Geological Museum, Zhengzhou 450016, Henan, China.
authors.forename: Di
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon, South Korea.
authors.forename: Yuong-Nam
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kundrát
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100037, China; Key Lab of Stratigraphy and Paleontology, Ministry of Land and Resources of China, Beijing 100037, China.
authors.forename: Caizhi
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D025061:Dinosaurs / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification; D005121:Extremities / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005580:Fossils; D010802:Phylogeny; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D013131:Spine / Q000033:anatomy & histology