Multiple trackways from the Cenomanian Djoua series, in In Amenas region (southeastern Algeria), represent the first ichnological evidence of gregarious behavior in Cretaceous sauropods from Africa

ABSTRACT

For the first time, a complete study of sauropod trackways has been carried out in the lower part of the Djoua series in the In Amenas region (southeastern Algeria). Several locomotion tracks have been discovered in this area. In the present work, we report the discovery of sauropod tracks exposed on a bedding surface of the Lower Formation attributed to the early Cenomanian that we assign to cf. Brontopodus isp. The tracks are located in two different areas approximately 2 km apart and are oriented N00° and N330° at the first and second sites, respectively. These tracks were formed when dinosaurs crossed an emergent or lightly submerged river plain. At the second site, trackways show several tracks generated by sauropods. They are sub-parallel in orientation and provide the first ichnological evidence of gregarious behavior in Cretaceous sauropods in Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• In Amenas
• southeastern Algeria
• Djoua series
• Cenomanian
• sauropod trackways
• gregarious behavior

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the General Directorate of Scientific Research and Technological Development “DGRSDT” (Algeria). We are grateful to the Associate Editors whose assistance and constructive comments contributed towards the improvement of this paper. The Algerian authors are very grateful to Mr. Khaoua Billal from the DELAB service (Sonatrach) and Brihmat Abdellah (Sonatrach production division of In Amenas) for all the facilities during the field mission. This work was carried out within the framework of an agreement between the University of Mascara and the Algerian petroleum society of Sonatrach. We thank the editor, Jens Lallensack and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

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