Late Jurassic dinosaurs from Asturias, Spain: Implications for the diversity and biogeography of European Late Jurassic dinosaur faunas

侏罗纪是我们了解恐龙进化的一个重要时期，因为大多数重要的谱系都是在那个时期起源和扩散的。最近的一项生物地理学分析表明，晚侏罗世对恐龙在白垩纪的分布起着决定性的作用，欧洲可能是那个时候一个重要的“转盘”。迄今为止，人们对欧洲恐龙群的了解主要来自于葡萄牙卢西塔尼亚盆地的发现，以及法国、英国和德国的个别发现。葡萄牙的动物群似乎与北美莫里森组的动物群非常相似，而在中欧和北欧的动物群中，似乎至少有一些亚洲的影响。晚侏罗世拉斯特拉斯组在西班牙北部的阿斯图里亚斯省出现，已经发现了恐龙的残片。最近，在这个单元中发现了两具关节恐龙遗骸，一具鸟臀目（可能是鸟脚亚目）和一具龙目（可能是蜥脚类）。这些标本有很大的潜力来提高我们对欧洲恐龙群的了解，因此它们的准备和科学研究是本提案的主题。

The Jurassic is an important time for our understanding of dinosaur evolution, as most important lineages originated and radiated during that period. A recent biogeographic analysis indicates that the Late Jurassic was decisive for dinosaur distribution in the Cretaceous, and that Europe might have been an important "turntable" at that time. European dinosaur faunas are so far mainly known from finds from the Lusitanian Basin in Portugal and isolated occurrences in France, England and Germany. The Portugese faunas seem to be very similar to that of the North American Morrison Formation, whereas there seems to be at least some Asian influence in the central and northern European faunas.The Late Jurassic Lastres Formation crops out in the northern Spanish province of Asturias and has already yielded fragmentary dinosaur remains. Recently, two articulated dinosaur remains were found in this unit, an ornithischian (probably ornithopod) and a saurischian (probably sauropodomorph). These specimens have a great potential to imporve our understanding of European dinosaur faunas, and their preparation and scientific study is thus the subject of this proposal.