Palaeontologists in India have described a new species of long-necked dinosaur unearthed from the Kachchh Basin of Gujarat, adding a rare and unusually well-preserved specimen to the sparse global fossil record of the Early and Middle Jurassic period. The new species, named Ceratocaudia antiqua, was identified by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), working in the Kaladongar Formation of the Khadir Uplift within the Kachchh Basin, and the findings have been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Ceratocaudia antiqua belongs to Neosauropoda, the dinosaur group that would eventually produce some of the largest land animals to have ever lived, including Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, and Argentinosaurus. Unlike those later giants, however, the newly described Gujarat species was comparatively modest in size, measuring an estimated 7 metres, or roughly 23 feet, in length. Researchers recovered a partial skeleton comprising 181 skeletal fragments from a single excavation site, including vertebrae, ribs, and elements of both the forelimb and hind limb, all believed to belong to one individual animal. The fossils are now housed at the Vertebrate Palaeontology Lab in the Department of Earth Sciences at IIT Bombay in Mumbai.
Dating the specimen precisely has proven difficult, as the rock layers in which it was found span a range from the Pliensbachian stage of the Early Jurassic through to the Bajocian stage of the Middle Jurassic, meaning Ceratocaudia antiqua could be as much as 190 million years old. Using digital reconstruction techniques and comparisons with the tail musculature of modern crocodilians and lizards, the research team modelled how the animal’s tail likely functioned, concluding that it was probably capable of being swung forcefully, potentially as a defensive measure against predators, a striking behavioural inference for an animal known only from partial skeletal remains.
Perhaps the most scientifically significant aspect of the discovery lies in its phylogenetic placement. The research team’s analysis positions Ceratocaudia antiqua as an early-branching macronarian, making it one of the oldest diagnosable members of Neosauropoda found anywhere in the world, and the earliest such find from India specifically. Taken together with two previously described Chinese species, Dashanpusaurus dongi and Yuzhoulong qurenensis, of broadly similar age, the discovery suggests that neosauropods had already achieved a global distribution before the Bajocian stage of the Jurassic, considerably earlier than the fossil record had previously demonstrated.
In their published conclusions, the researchers noted that the Kachchh sauropod represents one of the earliest known neosauropods and adds meaningfully to the otherwise sparse global fossil record of Early and Middle Jurassic neosauropods, a period from which relatively few well-preserved specimens have been recovered anywhere in the world. The find adds to Gujarat’s already substantial standing in Indian palaeontology; the state’s Narmada Basin and Kachchh region have previously yielded fossils of more than a dozen dinosaur species, and the Kachchh Basin in particular has separately produced early hominoid remains from later, Miocene-age deposits, making it one of India’s most palaeontologically productive regions across vastly different geological epochs.
– Raja Aditya
