CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

During the austral summer of 1986, fieldwork on James Ross Island by the Instituto Antártico Argentino resulted in the discovery of the first remains of dinosaurs from the Antarctic continent. These consist of a partial skeleton and bony plates of an armoured ornithischian belonging to the Ankylosauria. The fossil material was found in marine sandy-facies of the Santa Marta Formation (Marambio Group) of Campanian age. The remains were associated with marine invertebrates. At a slightly higher stratigraphic level, marine reptiles related to mosasaurs and plesiosaurs were also found. The occurrence of ankylosaurs on James Ross Island provides important new insight concerning hypotheses of land connections between South America and Antarctica during the Late Cretaceous. An earlier differentiation of the family Ankylosauridae and the distribution of these dinosaurs in Antarctica during the Late Cretaceous-Early Cretaceous cannot be completely ruled out. However, a late entrance of northern ankylosaurids into Antarctica, via South America, is considered more likely. Because it was not possible for these ankylosaurs to cross water barriers, their presence indicates that a continuous land connection must have existed between Antarctica and South America for some period of time during the Late Cretaceous.

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