Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia

Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont | ICP · Mesozoic

PhD in Vertebrate Paleontology

About

197
Publications
92,229
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Introduction
My paleontological research is focused mainly on Mesozoic diapsids, in particular: dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other groups of Mesozoic reptiles (mainly Triassic). I am author of over 85 scientific publications. I erected (with coauthors) the following species: Histriasaurus boscarollii, Tethyshadros insularis, Sauroniops pachytholus, Canardia garonnensis, Titanosaurimanus nana, "Cearadactylus" ligabuei, Austriadactylus cristatus, Carniadactylus rosenfeldi, Caelestiventus hanseni, Bobosaurus forojuliensis, Rosenfeldia triasica, and Friularacne rigoi.
Additional affiliations
November 2017 - October 2018
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont
Position
  • Research Associate
May 2013 - December 2014
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont
Position
  • Research Associate
March 2009 - April 2013
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont
Position
  • Researcher
Description
  • I did research on Vertebrate Paleontology, mainly latest Cretaceous dinosaurs. Teaching at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Field work direction in the upper Maastrichtian of the Pyrenees.
Education
February 1991 - July 1994
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
Field of study
  • Paleontology
November 1983 - March 1990
University of Bologna
Field of study
  • Geological Sciences

Publications

Publications (197)
Article
Full-text available
The definition of the Cretaceous shark genus Cretodus Sokolov, 1965 is primarily based on isolated teeth. This genus includes five species. Among these, Cretodus houghtonorum Shimada and Everhart, 2019 is the only species based on a partially preserved skeleton. Here, the taxonomic attribution of a virtually complete skeleton of Cretodus from the T...
Article
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The anurognathids are peculiar pterosaurs characterized by broad skulls with very short rostra and broadly arched jaws. The presence of distinct or confluent external naris and antorbital fenestra in these pterosaurs has been debated in the last years. The relatively well-preserved specimens of Batrachognathus volans show that the antorbital fenest...
Article
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Heteropelta boboi is a new archosauriform reptile from the upper Anisian of northeastern Italy represented by a fragment of dorsal armor with a row of neural arches of the dorsal vertebrae. The dorsal armor of the new taxon is composed of two columns of paramedian osteoderms and at least six columns of lateral osteoderms. Unlike other armored archo...
Article
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Several skeletal elements preserved in the holotype and only specimen of the pterosaur Austriadraco dallavecchiai Kellner, 2015 (uppermost Triassic, Austria) have not been identified or have remained undescribed in previous works. They include important elements for the systematic and phylogenetic studies such as the femur, premaxillae and maxillar...
Article
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Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to evolve powered flight¹ and comprised one of the main evolutionary radiations in terrestrial ecosystems of the Mesozoic era (approximately 252–66 million years ago), but their origin has remained an unresolved enigma in palaeontology since the nineteenth century2–4. These flying reptiles have been hypothesize...
Article
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We provide here the most complete census of the Italian Triassic tetrapod ichnosites ever published based on an extensive literature review, integrated with previously unpublished data. Most ichnosites are located in the Southern Alps but track-bearing localities are also described in the Western Alps, in Northern Apennines, Maritime Alps and in Sa...
Article
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We provide a list of contribution by Italian scientists to tetrapod ichnology with papers on both material from Italy and abroad. Foreign author's contributions on tetrapod ichnology based on material from Italy are also considered. The list updates the previous one published by D'Orazi Porchetti et al. (2008) and, as a result, includes works from...
Article
Full-text available
The basal hadrosauroid Tethyshadros insularis from the uppermost Cretaceous of NE Italy lived on an island of the European archipelago in the Tethys Ocean. The tail of this dinosaur presents several apomorphic traits respect to the tails of other coeval hadrosauroids of the archipelago and of hadrosauroids in general. The estimated total length of...
Article
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Tetrapod remains are extremely rare in the early Carnian (Late Triassic) Calcare del Predil Formation on the Italian side of the Julian Alps (Friuli Venezia Giulia Autonomous Region), which yielded the Raibl fossil assemblage including the famous “Raibl ichthyofauna”. A new tanystropheid archosauromorph, Raibliania calligarisi, is here named based...
Article
Full-text available
Despite being known from every continent, the geological record of pterosaurs, the first group of vertebrates to develop powered flight, is very uneven, with only a few deposits accounting for the vast majority of specimens and almost half of the taxonomic diversity. Among the regions that stand out for the greatest gaps of knowledge regarding thes...
Article
Full-text available
A new non-monofenestratan pterosaur with multicusped dentition, Seazzadactylus venieri, is described from the Upper Triassic (middle-upper Norian) of the Carnian Prealps (northeastern Italy). The holotype of S. venieri preserves a complete mandibular and maxillary dentition, along with a nearly complete premaxillary one, showing unique features. Fu...
Article
Cretoxyrhina mantelli was a large pelagic lamniform shark geographically widespread during the Late Cretaceous, and well known because of several nearly complete skeletons from the Western Interior Seaway of North America. Here we report 15 partial skeletons belonging to lamniform sharks from the ‘lastame’ lithozone of the Upper Cretaceous Scaglia...
Chapter
During faunal recovery after the Permo-Triassic mass extinction (PTME), several tetrapod lineages independently evolved adaptations to marine life. Thus reptiles became significant elements of marine environments already at the beginning of the Mesozoic Era. The emergence of a diverse assemblage of marine reptiles in the Triassic marked the develop...
Article
Full-text available
The lower Maastrichtian site of Basturs Poble (southern Pyrenees, Spain) is the first hadrosaur bonebed reported from Europe. It is an accumulation of disarticulated lambeosaurine skeletal elements, possibly belonging to Pararhabdodon isonensis. The sample shows high intraspecific morphological variability among many skeletal elements, suggesting t...
Data
Supporting information about bone histology. (PDF)
Data
Straight and nearly vertical coronoid process in juvenile lambeosaurines. (A) Juvenile skull of Lambeosaurus lambei (TMP 83.31.02). (B) Dentary of a very young hadrosaurid (TMP 67.20.232). Scale bar equals 10 cm. (TIF)
Data
Measurements of BP dentaries, tibiae and femora. (PDF)
Data
This is my Curriculum Vitae updated October 28, 2017
Article
Full-text available
Pterosaurs are the oldest known powered flying vertebrates. Originating in the Late Triassic, they thrived to the end of the Cretaceous. Triassic pterosaurs are extraordinarily rare and all but one specimen come from marine deposits in the Alps. A new comparatively large (wing span >150 cm) pterosaur, Caelestiventus hanseni gen. et sp. nov., from U...
Article
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Six stages (OS1-6) were identified by Kellner (2015) to establish the ontogeny of a given pterosaur fossil. These were used to support the erection of several new Triassic taxa including Bergamodactylus wildi, which is based on a single specimen (MPUM 6009) from the Norian of Lombardy, Italy. However, those ontogenetic stages are not valid because...
Article
Full-text available
This paper integrates the osteological description of the holotype of the pistosauroid eusauropterygian Bobosaurus forojuliensis (lower Carnian, NE Italy), which was first described by Dalla Vecchia (2006), mainly showing in detail the various skeletal elements and by the use of colour photographs. Furthermore, comparisons with the corresponding bo...
Data
Abstract GIUSEPPE LEONARDI and PAOLO MIETTO (Eds) THE ITALIAN DINOSAURS Note that many chapters of this book are here in my page of ResearchGate with full text, abstract and images. Search for chapters of year 2000. A VERY EXPANDED ABSTRACT IN ENGLISH (THE ORIGINAL TEXT IS IN ITALIAN WITH THIS EXPANDED ABSTRACT AT THE END OF THE BOOK) ----- THE JUR...
Article
Full-text available
Ouranosaurus nigeriensis is an iconic African dinosaur taxon that has been described on the basis of two nearly complete skeletons from the Lower Cretaceous Gadoufaoua locality of the Ténéré desert in Niger. The entire holotype and a few bones attributed to the paratype formed the basis of the original description by Taquet (1976). A mounted skelet...
Data
Supplementary information on measurements, field maps and phylogenetic analysis
Article
In the nineties of the 20th century, a large and partially articulated skeleton of a lamniform shark was discovered in Upper Cretaceous hemipelagic beds of the Venetian Prealps of northeastern Italy. The shark, dating back to the middle Turonian, is here ascribed to Cretodus and represents the first record of this genus in Italy. The fossil is the...
Article
An incomplete bone from the latest Cretaceous dinosaur site of Villaggio del Pescatore (Trieste Province, Italy) is definitely a wing metacarpal of a pterodactyloid pterosaur. It represents the only Italian Cretaceous pterosaur remains known, as well as the only pterosaur from the Adriatic Carbonate Platform. With an estimated minimum length of 136...
Article
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Sclerorhynchiform sawfishes are a diverse and extinct clade of elasmobranchs that is restricted to the Cretaceous. Most taxa are known only by isolated rostral spines, whereas skeletal remains are rare and have been reported from a small number of Upper Cretaceous localities. Here, we describe skeletal remains of the giant sclerorhynchiform Onchosa...
Article
The first asellote isopod from the fossil record is described here as Fornicaris calligarisi Wilson and Selden, n. gen. and sp. The two specimens, both probably males, showing dorsal morphology, come from loose material of the Dolomia di Forni Formation in the bed of the Tagliamento River below the town of Forni di Sotto, Udine Province, Friuli Ven...
Article
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A fossil coming from the Cretaceous (Barremian) Lagerstätte of the Torrent Cornappo (Nimis, Udine), which was firstly identified as representing a juvenile sea turtle, is reinterpreted as a part of the scale covering of a pycnodontiform fi sh (Pisces, Actinopterygii) that is preserved in a quite unusual way.
Article
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A small accumulation of bones from the Norian (Upper Triassic) of the Seazza Brook Valley (Carnic Prealps, Northern Italy) was originally (1989) identified as a gastric pellet made of pterosaur skeletal elements. The specimen has been reported in literature as one of the very few cases of gastric ejecta containing pterosaur bones since then. Howeve...
Article
An apparently nearly complete and fairly well-articulated specimen of a large toothed pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil is exhibited at the CosmoCaixa – Museo de la Ciencia, Barcelona, Spain. The museum label refers it to Anhanguera piscator and reports a provenance from the Crato Formation. Its study shows that it is from the Romualdo...
Article
Two small bones from the Upper Triassic of Cromhall Quarry (Gloucestershire, England), which are referred in the literature to pterosaurian wing metacarpals, are compared with wing metacarpals of unequivocal pterosaur specimens from the Upper Triassic of Italy and Greenland as well as those of the Liassic Dimorphodon macronyx from England. The two...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Barranc de Torrebilles (Isona i Conca Dellà, Pallars Jussà, Lleida) is located between the towns of Basturs and Orcau. Between 2001 and 2004 up to five sites in this zone were discovered, which are included in the upper part of the lower red unit of the Tremp Formation (Late Maastrichtian). Its lithology is defined by a powerful sequence of clays,...
Chapter
Latest Cretaceous hadrosauroids from the Upper Campanian–Maastrichtian of Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Slovenia, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, France, and Spain are reviewed. This record includes the non-hadrosaurid Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus and Tethyshadros insularis, and the lambeosaurines Parahabdodon isonensis, Arenysaurus ard...
Chapter
The eastern Tremp Syncline (northeastern Spain) is the richest European locality for latest Cretaceous hadrosauroids. We summarize the record of hadrosauroid skeletal remains from 33 localities and tracks from 15 sites in the Tremp Formation. Two of the bone-bearing localities occur in the Early/Late Maastrichtian “gray unit,” whereas all other sit...
Article
Full-text available
We have addressed an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) on a collection of thirteen fossil bone belonging to the Molı´ del Baro´ 1 paleontological site located near Sant Roma` d’Abella (Isona i Conca Della` Municipality, Lleida Province, Spain, dated to about 66.5 Ma, to investigate the fossilization occurred in this site in terms...
Article
Full-text available
Ten new track-bearing boulders discovered in the Parco Naturale delle Dolomiti Friulane area (Carnic Prealps, NE Italy) during the last 15 years demonstrate that bipedal dinosaurs with a functionally tridactyl, digitigrade pes, within the size-class of the ichnogenus Anchisauripus Lull, 1904, were the most common trackmakers in the carbonate tidal...
Article
Pterosaur bones are for the first time reported from the Tremp Syncline (Spain) and the southern Pyrenees. They come from the Torrebilles‐2 site (Isona, Lleida Province) in the upper Maastrichtian part of the Tremp Formation, which falls within the C29r magnetochron. Fragmentary long bones are referred to the Pterosauria based on their cortical thi...
Article
Full-text available
Preparation of the holotype specimen of Bobosaurus forojuliensis, a large sauropterygian from the lower Carnian of northeastern Italy, revealed new morphological data relevant in establishing its phylogenetic affinities among pistosauroid taxa and its relationships with plesiosaurians. Inclusion of B. forojuliensis in two phylogenetic analyses focu...
Article
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The “Bonaventura Gravina” Collection of the Earth Science Museum of Catania (Italy) includes an ichthyosaur specimen of unknown geographic and stratigraphic provenance, age, and taxonomic determination. On comparison with other fossils from the same collection it was established that the specimen is from Böll, southwestern Germany; the ammonites pr...
Article
Pterosaurs are a clade of highly specialized, volant archosauromorphs recorded from the Upper Triassic to the uppermost Cretaceous. Problematic remains referred to the Pterosauria are reported from the Triassic of Europe and both North and South America, but unequivocal pterosaur specimens are only known from the Alps (Italy, Austria and Switzerlan...
Article
Full-text available
We provide a thorough re-evaluation of the taxonomic diversity, phylogenetic relationships, and historical biogeography of the lambeosaurine hadrosaurids from the European Archipelago. Previously published occurrences of European Lambeosaurinae are reviewed and new specimens collected from upper Maastrichtian strata of the south-central Pyrenees ar...
Data
Characters used in the maximum parsimony analysis for inferring the phylogenetic relationships of the lambeosaurine taxa and specimens from the European archipelago. Internet links is some of the characters correspond to the illustration and documentation of character states in Morphbank, an online repository for biological images. (DOC)
Data
Character state codings of 265 morphological characters for the 34 hadrosauroid taxa used to infer the phylogenetic interrelationships of lambeosaurine hadrosaurids. (NEX)
Data
Full-text available
Results of the Bayesian-Binary MCMC analysis [105] performed on each of the five most parsimonious trees resulting from maximum parsimony analysis of lambeosaurine relationships. Numbers represent probability proportions of inferred ancestral areas. Node numbers correspond to those in the phylograms included below. (PDF)
Data
Full-text available
Results of the Dispersal-Extinction-Cladogenesis analysis [106], [129] performed on each of the five most parsimonious trees resulting from maximum parsimony analysis of lambeosaurine relationships. Numbers represent probability proportions of inferred ancestral areas. Node numbers correspond to those in the phylograms included below. (PDF)