Noasaurid theropod (Abelisauria) femur from the Upper Cretaceous Bauru Group in Triângulo Mineiro (Southeastern Brazil)

Abstract

A new record of noasaurid theropod (Dinosauria, Abelisauria) is here described and compared, including the description of its microstructure. It consists of an almost complete femur of small size (132 mm of preserved length) discovered in 2014 in a new locality at Campina Verde Municipality, Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The new locality is named Fazenda Seis Irmãos-Grotas and has also provided thousands of ostracods, few fish remains, and a partial skeleton of an indeterminate baurusuchid mesoeucrocodylian. The bearing-fossil sedimentary sequence is referred to the Adamantina Formation (Bauru Group, Bauru Basin). The femur here presented represents the second putative occurrence of an unusual small-sized noasaurid abelisaur for the Upper Cretaceous Bauru Group.