Jurassic dinosaurs from Brazil: the footprints from Parnaíba Province, Mosquito Formation

Ismar de Souza Carvalho¹, Manuel Alfredo Medeiros³, Roseane Ribeiro Sarges⁴, Denise Carla da Silva Mendes⁵, Rossano D. L. Michel⁶, Claiton M. S. Scherer⁷, Bernardo de C. P. e M. Peixoto^8,9, Heitor R. D. Francischini¹⁰, Renato P. Ghilardi¹¹, Roberto Vasconcelos Marques¹², José Maria dos Reis Maia Filho¹³ & Hannah Souza Levy^14
1Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, CCMN - Instituto de Geociências, Brazil. ²Centro de Geociências, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal. ³Universidade Federal do Maranhão DEBIO, Brazil. ⁴Universidade Federal do Maranhão BICT, Brazil. ⁵Universidade Estadual do Maranhão, Brazil. ⁶Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Geociências, Brazil. ⁷Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Geociências, Brazil. ⁸Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Faculdade de Ciências de Bauru, Brazil. ⁹Gobabeb Namib Research Institute, Namibia. ¹⁰Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Instituto de Geociências, Brazil. ¹¹Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Faculdade de Ciências de Bauru, Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Brazil. ¹²Secretaria de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Turismo de Balsas, Brazil. ¹³Associação Ambiental Orla Viva, Praia da Ponta Grossa, Brazil. ¹⁴Instituto Federal do Maranhão, Brazil.
Corresponding author e-mail: ismar@geologia.ufrj.br

Dinosaur footprints in the Parnaíba Province, Brazil are so far restricted to the Corda Formation (Upper Jurassic) and Itapecuru Formation (Lower Cretaceous). They are interpreted as predominantly belonging to theropods. In this study, fossil footprints are reported in sandstones from the Mosquito Formation (Lower Jurassic), municipality of Fortaleza dos Nogueiras, Maranhão State, Northeastern Brazil. The footprints occur in sedimentary succession interpreted as an aeolian-lacustrine environmental context (Macapá Member) representing the first deposits of the Mosquito Formation. The new ichnosite of Tangará Ecopark represents to date the most important occurrence of dinosaur tracks from the Brazilian Jurassic, with a large number of footprints allowing new insights into the dinosaur record from Brazil and new perspectives on their diversity and environmental distribution.

footprints, Jurassic, Mosquito Formation, Parnaíba Basin, dinosaur tracks.