DOI: 10.5061/dryad.33tb2
title: Data from: Abelisauridae (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Late Jurassic of Portugal and dentition-based phylogeny as a contribution for the identification of isolated theropod teeth

description: Theropod dinosaurs form a highly diversified clade, and their teeth are
 some of the most common components of the Mesozoic dinosaur fossil record.
 This is the case in the Lourinhã Formation (Late Jurassic,
 Kimmeridgian-Tithonian) of Portugal, where theropod teeth are particularly
 abundant and diverse. Four isolated theropod teeth are here described and
 identified based on morphometric and anatomical data. They are included in
 a cladistic analysis performed on a data matrix of 141 dentition-based
 characters coded in 60 taxa, as well as a supermatrix combining our
 dataset with six recent datamatrices based on the whole theropod skeleton.
 The consensus tree resulting from the dentition-based data matrix reveals
 that theropod teeth provide reliable data for identification at
 approximately family level. Therefore, phylogenetic methods will help
 identifying theropod teeth with more confidence in the future. Although
 dental characters do not reliably indicate relationships among higher
 clades of theropods, they demonstrate interesting patterns of homoplasy
 suggesting dietary convergence in (1) alvarezsauroids, therizinosaurs and
 troodontids; (2) coelophysoids and spinosaurids; (3) compsognathids and
 dromaeosaurids; and (4) ceratosaurids, allosauroids and megalosaurids.
 Based on morphometric and cladistic analyses, the biggest tooth from
 Lourinhã is referred to a mesial crown of the megalosaurid Torvosaurus
 tanneri, due to the elliptical cross section of the crown base, the large
 size and elongation of the crown, medially positioned mesial and distal
 carinae, and the coarse denticles. The smallest tooth is identified as
 Richardoestesia, and as a close relative of R. gilmorei based on the weak
 constriction between crown and root, the “eight-shaped” outline of the
 base crown and, on the distal carina, the average of ten symmetrically
 rounded denticles per mm, as well as a subequal number of denticles
 basally and at mid-crown. Finally, the two medium-sized teeth belong to
 the same taxon and exhibit pronounced interdenticular sulci between distal
 denticles, hooked distal denticles for one of them, an irregular enamel
 texture, and a straight distal margin, a combination of features only
 observed in abelisaurids. They provide the first record of Abelisauridae
 in the Jurassic of Laurasia and one of the oldest records of this clade in
 the world, suggesting a possible radiation of Abelisauridae in Europe well
 before the Upper Cretaceous.
description: Morphometric graphs on
 nonavian theropod teethMorphometric data on
 nonavian theropod teethTeeth morphometric
 graphs.xlsxDentition-based
 datamatrixTnt files including the
 dentition-based datamatrix coded in 60 nonavian theropod teeth and four
 isolated tooth from the collection of the Museum of
 Lourinhã.Matrix Hendrickx & Mateus
 Zootaxa.tntDentition-based
 supermatrixTnt files including the
 dentition-based datamatrix combined to six datasets (Xu et al. 2009;
 Brusatte et al. 2010; Martinez et al. 2011; Senter 2011; Pol & Rauhut
 2012; Carrano et al. 2012) and coded in 60 nonavian theropod teeth and
 four isolated tooth from the collection of the Museum of
 Lourinhã.Supermatrix Hendrickx &
 Mateus Zootaxa.tntTeeth character
 codingCharacter states and
 character coding of a dentition-based datamatrix/supermatrix including 60
 nonavian theropod taxa and 4 isolated teeth from the collection of the
 Museum of Lourinhã.