Late Cretaceous dinosaurian remains from the Kristianstad Basin of southern Sweden

• Published in: Geological Society, London, Special Publications
• Main Authors: Poropat, Stephen F., Einarsson, Elisabeth, Lindgren, Johan, Bazzi, Mohamad, Lagerstam, Clarence, Kear, Benjamin P.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Geological Society of London 2016
• Subjects: Geology; Fennoscandian
• Online Access: https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7661dec0-3cae-42d3-a477-51aa8b60c300; https://doi.org/10.1144/SP434.8

Mesozoic dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in Scandinavia. The Swedish record is typically depauperate, with the Kristianstad Basin of SkÅne (Scania) yielding all of the known fossils from Swedish Cretaceous strata. Although highly fragmentary, these body remnants are important because they provide evidence of a relatively diverse fauna, including previously recognized hesperornithiform birds and leptoceratopsid ceratopsians, as well as indeterminate ornithopods that are confirmed here for the first time. In this paper, we describe three phalanges (from Åsen) and an incomplete right tibia (from Ugnsmunnarna) from the Kristianstad Basin. One of the phalanges appears to pertain to a leptoceratopsid ceratopsian, providing further evidence of these small ornithischians in the Cretaceous sediments of Sweden. The other two phalanges are interpreted as deriving from small ornithopods similar to Thescelosaurus and Parksosaurus. The tibia appears to represent the first evidence of a non-avian theropod dinosaur in the Cretaceous of Sweden, with a previous report of theropod remains based on fish teeth having been corrected by other authors. The remains described herein provide important additions to the enigmatic dinosaurian fauna that inhabited the Fennoscandian archipelago during the latest Cretaceous.