| Vallibonavenatrix Temporal range: Barremian | |
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| Illustration of Vallibonavenatrix cani | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Spinosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Spinosaurinae |
| Genus: | †Vallibonavenatrix Malafaia et al., 2019 |
| Type species | |
| †Vallibonavenatrix cani | |
Vallibonavenatrix cani is an extinct genus of medium sized Spinosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian 129.4 and 125 million years ago) of Spain. It was found to be closely related to Spinosaurus in the subfamily Spinosaurinae.
Discovery and naming[]
The holotype is a partial skeleton, consisting of some vertebrae, chevrons, and dorsal spines. It was first discovered during the late 1980s and early 1990s, by a amateur fossil collector Juan Cano Forner was recovering bones from various localities in Els Ports Natural Park, located in the Province of Castellón, Spain. In the Santa Águeda locality in the town of Vallibona, he excavated numerous vertebrate remains dating to the Mesozoic era, among which were dinosaur fossils. He housed these fossils in a private collection at Sant Mateu, which thee Generalitat Valenciana acknowledged as a museographic collection in 1994. In 2007 Spanish paleontologist Fernando Gómez-Fernández and colleagues published a provisional description on the pelvis of a theropod from Forner's collection. There was cervical, vertebrae, 6 dorsal vertebrae, an almost complete sacrum, fragments of neurapophyses, four caudal vertebrae, ten partial ribs and rib fragments, three incomplete chevrons, an almost complete left ilium, fragments of the ventral part of a right ilium, incomplete right and left ischia, and a fragment interpreted as belonging to the proximal part of a pubis.
Naming[]
In 2019 Elisabete Malafaia and colleagues published their description of a new genus and species of spinosaurid dinosaur, Vallibonavenatrix cani along with the partial skeleton as its holotype specimen. The genus name refers to the town of Vallibona, with the Latin suffix "-venatrix", meaning "huntress". The species name is in honour of Cano Forner as the fossil's discoverer. Vallibonavenatrix represents the most complete spinosaurid specimen recovered from the Iberian Peninsula.
Description[]
Vallibonavenatrix estimated at under 8.8 m
Vallibonavenatrix was moderately sized theropod, estimated at 8 m (24 ft) long, weight unknown. The upwards-projecting neural spines of its dorsal vertebrae were moderately tall, and one known spine is expanded from bottom to top in a sort of trapezoidal, fan-like shape similar to those of the spinosaurid Ichthyovenator. The similarities in morphology between Icthyovenator and Vallibonavenatrix neural spines, indicates the presence of elongated spines forming a sail on Vallibonavenatrix's back, common among spinosaurids. The sacrum of Vallibonavenatrix had deep pleurocoelous fossae (or depressions) and pneumatic (air-filled) openings. The ilium of the pelvis was highly pneumatic, and had large internal chambers.
Phylogeny[]
In 2019 when Vallibonavenatrix was named Malafaia and her team of colleagues classified Vallibonavenatrix within the Spinosauridae. A family of large-bodied tetanuran dinosaurs traditionally separated into two subfamilies: Spinosaurinae and Baryonychinae. Though closer in proximity to European baryonychines such as Baryonyx from the Barremian of Spain and England, Vallibonavenatrix was found to be more closely related to spinosaurines such as Spinosaurus and Icthyvenator from the southern supercontinent Gondwana, and the Asian genus Ichthyovenator. Thus, Malafaia and colleagues placed it within Spinosaurinae.
Paleoenvironment[]
Vallibonevenatrix comes from the Arcillas de Morella Formation, which was dated to the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous period, It coexisted in this environment with other dinosaurs like the ornithischians Iguanodon bernissartensis and Morelladon beltrani; an indeterminate sauropod; and as well as an indeterminate baryonychine.