First evidence of ranunculids in Early Cretaceous tropics

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: William Vieira Gobo, Lutz Kunzmann, Roberto Iannuzzi, Julien B. Bachelier, Clément Coiffard
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Portfolio 2022
• Subjects: Medicine; R; Science; Q; Arctic; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-07920-y; https://doaj.org/article/673cd3c1f59c405ca1d4ad58cc4d97f5

Abstract Early Cretaceous floras containing angiosperms were described from several geographic areas, nearly from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and are crucial to understand their evolution and radiation. However, most of these records come from northern mid-latitudes whereas those of lower paleolatitude areas, such as the Crato Fossil Lagerstätte in NE Brazil, are less studied. Here, we describe from this region of northern Gondwanan origin, two fossil-species of eudicots belonging to a new extinct genus Santaniella gen. nov. Together with several vegetative axes and leaves, anatomically well-preserved fruits with seeds and persistent perianth-like organs allowed us to reconstruct its potential affinities with ranunculids, and presumably Ranunculaceae. Previous records putatively assigned to Ranunculales are all from mid-latitudes, and their first unequivocal occurrence in a low-latitude area supports further the hypothesis of a widespread radiation of the earliest diverging eudicot lineage by this early age.