First record of a small stegosaur footprint (cf. Stegopodus) from the ?Upper Jurassic-?Lower Cretaceous red beds of the Middle Atlas, Morocco

Abstract

We describe an isolated small stegosaur pes track from the ?Upper Jurassic-?Lower Cretaceous red beds of the folded Middle Atlas, Morocco. It comes from the base of the Oued El Atchane Formation which unconformably overlies the Middle Jurassic (Upper Bathonian-? Callovian) El Mers III Formation. The footprint is preserved as concave epirelief together with a natural cast on a fluvial sandstone slab and is assigned here tentatively to cf. Stegopodus isp. The new discovery confirms the presence of this ichnogenus on the African continent and highlights similarities between the Jurassic-Cretaceous dinosaur faunas of North Africa and those of Asia, North America and Western Europe.

Keywords:

• Jurassic-Cretaceous
• Morocco
• Oued El Atchane Formation
• Stegopodus
• Stegosaur track

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers Ricardo Melchor and Jens Lallensack for their positive and constructive comments that improved the manuscript. The Faculty of Sciences Ben M’sik, Hassan II University of Casablanca, kindly provided logistical support during field trip.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).