A new toothless ceratosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Brazil

[DD1991]

You're not going to believe your eyes, but a new jaw-dropping paper is available online:

 

de Souza GA, Soares MB, Weinschütz LC, Wilner E, Lopes RT, de Araújo OM, Kellner AW (2021). The first edentulous ceratosaur from South America. Scientific Reports 11 (1): Article number 22281. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-01312-4.

 

The discovery of Berthasaura reveals that not all ceratosaurs from the Late Cretaceous had teeth, because the jaws of Berthasaura lacked teeth. The Asian elaphrosaurine Limusaurus is also toothless, but the Late Cretaceous age of Berthasaura shows that some toothless noasaurids survived into the Late Cretaceous. The recovery of Berthasaura in a basal position within Noasauridae rather in a derived position might be affected by the absence of foot bones in the holotype and the percentage of missing morphological data for Deltadromeus because Berthasaurus is younger than Deltadromeus and other members of Elaphrosaurinae.