New specimens of the basal ornithischian dinosaur Lesothosaurus diagnosticus Galton, 1978 from the Early Jurassic of South Africa

Abstract

We describe new specimens of the basal ornithischian dinosaur Lesothosaurus diagnosticus Galton, 1978 collected from a bonebed in the Fouriesburg district of the Free State, South Africa. The material was collected from the upper Elliot Formation (Early Jurassic) and represents the remains of at least three individuals. These individuals are larger in body size than those already known in museum collections and offer additional information on cranial ontogeny in the taxon. Moreover, they are similar in size to the sympatric taxon Stormbergia dangershoeki. The discovery of three individuals at this locality might imply group-living behaviour in this early ornithischian.Palaeontologia africana 2016. ©2016 Paul M. Barrett, Richard J. Butler, Adam M. Yates, Matthew G. Baron&Jonah N. Choiniere. This is an open-access article published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License (CC BY4.0). To view a copy of the license, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This item is permanently archived at: http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/19886. The attached file is the published version of the article