First dinosaur and turtle remains from the latest Cretaceous shallow marine deposits of Albaina (La no quarry, Iberian Peninsula)

Abstract

We report here on new vertebrate fossils from the latest Cretaceous of Albaina (Laño quarry, Condado de Trevño), northern Iberian Peninsula. They consist of an incompletehadrosauroid femur and two partial plates of turtles, one belonging to a Pleurodira(Bothremydidae), the other one to an indeterminate taxon, probably corresponding to aPan-Cryptodira. They are the first dinosaur and turtle remains found in the Late Maas-trichtian sublittoral beds of Albaina. Other components of this shallow marine vertebratefauna are selachians (sharks, rays), actinopterygians (pycnodonts, teleosts) and marine rep-tiles (mosasaurids, plesiosaurs). The Albaina femur is one of the few hadrosauroid remainsfrom the Late Maastrichtian of Europe found in marine environments, and the first onedescribed from this kind of deposits in the Iberian Peninsula. The histological structure ofthe bone indicates that it belongs to an immature individual of small size.