The furculae of the dromaeosaurid dinosaur Dakotaraptor steini are trionychid turtle entoplastra
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Paleontology, Taxonomy
- Keywords
- Trionychidae, Dromaeosauridae, Theropoda, Testudines, Axestemys, Cretaceous, Maastrichtian, Hell Creek Formation, South Dakota
- Copyright
- © 2015 Arbour et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. The furculae of the dromaeosaurid dinosaur Dakotaraptor steini are trionychid turtle entoplastra. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1570v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1570v1
Abstract
Dakotaraptor steini is a recently described dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota. Included within the D. steini hypodigm are three elements originally identified as furculae: one which is part of the holotype specimen and two referred specimens. We show that the elements described as D. steini ‘furculae’ are not theropod dinosaur furculae, but rather trionychid turtle entoplastra. Given that the holotype 'furcula' is not referable to Dromaeosauridae and that the specimen is a disarticulated individual based on skeletal remains from a multitaxic bonebed, the holotype of Dakotaraptor steini is a chimera.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.