DOI: 10.5061/dryad.p5hqbzkzw
title: Data from: Convergent evolution among non-carnivorous, desert-dwelling theropods as revealed by the dentary of the noasaurid Berthasaura leopoldinae (Cretaceous of Brazil)

description: The Cretaceous witnessed the establishment of many desertic landscapes
 across the globe, including the Early Cretaceous Caiuá palaeodesert, in
 south-central Brazil, and those of several Late Cretaceous deposits of the
 Gobi Desert. Although separated in time and space, their faunas share the
 presence of medium-sized, edentulous theropods (e.g. oviraptorids
 and Berthasaura leopoldinae) which depart from the typically
 carnivorous diet of the group. Here, we report a new dentary of the latter
 taxon, which bears alveolar vestiges, suggesting that its teeth were lost
 during ontogeny, as previously reported for another
 noasaurid, Limusaurus inextricabilis, from the Late Jurassic of
 China. In addition, we used geometric morphometrics to quantitatively
 analyse the shape of theropod jaw bones, revealing a significant
 morphological convergence signal for the dentary
 of Be. leopoldinae and oviraptorids, which are
 dorsoventrally deep, and bear a large mandibular fenestra. This probably
 resulted from adaptations to feed on the tough parts of xerophytic plants,
 which are important food sources in desertic environments.
description: # Data from: Convergent evolution among non-carnivorous, desert-dwelling
 theropods as revealed by the dentary of the noasaurid *Berthasaura
 leopoldinae* (Cretaceous of Brazil)
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p5hqbzkzw](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p5hqbzkzw) Felipe Ferreira Pierossi1; Rafael Delcourt1*; Daniel de Melo Casali1; João Alberto Leme1; Neurides de Oliveira Martins2; Paulo Manzig2; Max Cardoso Langer1  1 Laboratório de Paleontologia, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, 14040-901 Ribeirão Preto-SP, Brazil. 2 Museu de Paleontologia de Cruzeiro do Oeste “Alexandre Gustavo Dobruski”, R. João Ormino de Rezende, 686, 87400-000 Cruzeiro do Oeste-PR, Brazil.  \* Corresponding author: [rafael.delcourt@gmail.com](mailto:rafael.delcourt@gmail.com) ## Description of the data and file structure #### File: Theropoda_time-scale.nex **Description:** Nexus input file used to conduct the clockless, “empty matrix”, Bayesian tip-dating time-scaling analysis in MrBayes 3.2.7a (Ronquist et al. 2012). #### File: Theropoda_script.R **Description:** R (R Core Team 2024) script used to conduct all macroevolutionary analyses. All the following files are necessary as inputs for running the R script. #### File: Theropoda_phylogeny.nwk **Description:** Informal supertree phylogeny of theropods used in the macroevolutionary analyses conducted with the R script above. #### File: Theropoda_dated.trees **Description:** Post-burn-in posterior sample of time-calibrated phylogenies obtained from the tip-dating analysis, and used in the macroevolutionary analyses conducted with the R script above. #### File: Theropoda_info.csv **Description:** Post-burn-in posterior sample of time-calibrated phylogenies obtained from the tip-dating analysis, and used in the macroevolutionary analyses conducted with the R script above. ##### Variables * Species: Species names * FAD: First appearance datum (in millions of years) * LAD: Last appearance datum (in millions of years) * Diet: Diets assigned to species * Taxon: Taxonomic groups #### File: maxilla.TPS **Description:** Landmark configuration obtained from the maxilla of theropods, used in the macroevolutionary analyses conducted with the R script above. #### File: dentary.TPS **Description:** Landmark configuration obtained from the dentary of theropods, used in the macroevolutionary analyses conducted with the R script above. **References** Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., Van Der Mark, P., Ayres, D. L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., ... & Huelsenbeck, J. P. (2012). MrBayes 3.2: efficient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model choice across a large model space. Systematic biology, 61(3), 539-542. R Core Team. (2024). “R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing.” R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. [https://www.R-project.org/](https://www.R-project.org/).