Saltriovenator

Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Saltriovenator (meaning "Saltrio hunter") is a genus of ceratosaurian dinosaur that lived during the Sinemurian stage of the Early Jurassic in what is now Italy. The type and only species is Saltriovenator zanellai; in the past, the species had been known under the informal name "saltriosaur". Although a full skeleton has not yet been discovered, Saltriovenator is thought to have been a large, bipedal carnivore similar to Ceratosaurus.

On 4 August 1996, the first remains of Saltriovenator were discovered by amateur paleontologist Angelo Zanella, searching for ammonites in the Salnova marble quarry in Saltrio, northern Italy. Zanella had already been working for the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Milano and this institution after being informed sent out a team to investigate the find. Cristiano Dal Sasso and the volunteers of the Paleontological Group of Besano, under the direction of Giorgio Teruzzi managed to salvage a number of chalk blocks visibly containing bones. The skeleton had shortly before its discovery been blown to pieces by explosives used in the quarry to break the marble layers. Blocks that had been secured were inserted into a bath of formic acid for 1,800 hours to free the bones. The holotype, MSNM V3664, was found in a layer of the Saltrio Formation dating from the earliest early Sinemurian, 199 million years old. It consists of a fragmentary skeleton with a lower jaw. About 10% of the skeleton has been discovered, including a tooth, a right splenial, a right prearticular, a neck rib, fragments of the dorsal ribs and scapulae, a well preserved but incomplete furcula, humeri, metacarpal II, phalanx II 1, phalanx III 1, phalanx III 2, manual ungual III, a distal tarsal III, a distal tarsal IV and the proximal second to fifth metatarsals. The holotype individual likely died on the shores of an ancient beach before being washed out to sea. After death, the skeletal remains suffered from prolonged transport, during which many bones were lost and the remaining ones highly fragmented. Although Saltriovenator was not aquatic, the environment in which the carcass was deposited was likely pelagic, judging by the associated ammonites. The locality is also rich in crinoids, gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods and bryozoans. Deposition occurred on a slope between a shallow carbonate platform and a deeper basin. Various scratches, grooves, and striations indicate that the carcass was subject to scavenging by marine invertebrates. The specimen represents a subadult individual, nearing its maximum size, of which the age has been estimated at twenty four years. Dal Sasso originally referred it to the Tetanurae He later considered that it may represent an allosauroid, although in either case it would predate other members of the clades by roughly 20 30 million years. Benson considered it a member of Coelophysoidea in his review of Magnosaurus. The presence of a wishbone

The 2018 description paper ran a large phylogenetic analysis, and found it to be a basal ceratosaur, the sister taxon of Berberosaurus. The Dinosaur Fossils found on the Saltrio formation could have been translated from this area, or alternatively, the Arbostora swell (that was located at the north of the Saltrio formation, on Switzerland). This was an emerged structural high close to the Saltrio Formation, that caused a division between two near subsiding basins located at Mt. Nudo (East) and Mt. Generoso (West). These outcrops show that the emerged areas that on the Hettangian Sinemurian, the current location of the modern Maggiore Lake was covered with forests, what was proven by the presence of large plant fragments on the Moltrasio Formation. The plants have been recovered between the locations of Cellina and Arolo (eastern side of Lake Maggiore), from rocks that have been found to be coeval in age to the Saltrio Formation. The Flora includes genera such as Bennettitales (Ptilophyllum), terrestrial Araucariaceae (Pagiophyllum), and Cheirolepidiaceae (Brachyphyllum), that developed on inland areas with dry warm conditions. Saltriovenator probably come from this nearby landmass, as other emerged zones, such as the Trento Platform where it's far of the location of discovery. If so, this theropod was probably the largest predator on the region.