Tarchia

Tarchia (meaning "brainy one") is a genus of herbivorous ankylosaurid dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of Mongolia.

Tarchia Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 75–70 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
A cast of specimen PIN 3142/250, the holotype of T. teresae.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Family:	†Ankylosauridae
Subfamily:	†Ankylosaurinae
Genus:	†Tarchia Maryanska, 1977
Type species
†Tarchia kielanae Maryanska, 1977
Other species
†T. teresae Penkalski & Tumanova, 2016
Synonyms
Dyoplosaurus giganteus Maleev, 1956 Minotaurasaurus? Miles & Miles, 2009

Discovery and naming

Cast of a tail club assigned to T. gigantea

In 1970, a Polish-Mongolian expedition discovered an ankylosaurian skull near Khulsan. In 1977, Teresa Maryańska named and described the type species Tarchia kielanae. The generic name is derived from Mongolian tarkhi, "brain" and Latin ~ia, in reference to a brain size presumed larger than that of the related form Saichania. The specific name honours Professor Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska, the leader of the expedition.

The holotype, ZPal MgD-I/111, was discovered in the Upper Cretaceous (possibly Campanian-Maastrichtian) Barun Goyot Formation (previously known as the 'Lower Nemegt Beds') of the Nemegt Basin of Mongolia. It consists of a skull roof, braincase and rear skull elements.[1] Maryańska referred three additional specimens: ZPAL MgDI/43, a large postcranial skeleton containing three "free" tail vertebrae, twelve tail vertebrae of the "handle" of the tail club and a scute; ZPAL MgDI/49, a right humerus; and PIN 3142/251, a skeleton with skull, that as yet remains undescribed.

Tarchia is the geologically youngest of all known Asian ankylosaurid dinosaurs. In 1977, Tatyana Tumanova named a second species: Tarchia gigantea. This was a renaming of Dyoplosaurus giganteus Maleev 1956, which had been based on specimen PIN 551/29.[2] In 1987, Tumanova concluded that both species were identical. This would make Dyoplosaurus giganteus the senior synonym of Tarchia kielanae.[3] This was generally accepted and Tarchia gigantea became the usual species name, as a combinatio nova replacing Tarchia kielanae. However, recent study by Victoria Megan Arbour indicates that D. giganteus is indistinguishable from other ankylosaurs from the late Campanian-Maastrichtian of Mongolia, and hence a nomen dubium; the study revived the name Tarchia kielanae.[4] A rump with tail and club, specimen ZPAL MgD I/113, once referred to Dyoplosaurus giganteus and subsequently to Tarchia gigantea, was by Arbour seen as different from the D. giganteus holotype.[5] The study by Arbour also concluded that specimen PIN 3142/250, in 1977 referred to Tarchia by Tumanova, probably belonged to Saichania instead. This would radically change the common image of Tarchia as this exemplar had been by far the best preserved and most illustrations, museum mounts and indeed scientific research had been based on it. Arbour discovered that the holotype of Tarchia shared distinguishing traits with that of Minotaurasaurus Miles & Miles 2009, concluding that the latter is a junior synonym of Tarchia.[6]

Subsequently, in 2016, a study conducted by Penkalski & Tumanova indicated that PIN 3142/250 is not referable to Saichania due to significant anatomical differences, but instead represents a new species of Tarchia, T. teresae. The study also recognized Minotaurasaurus as a distinct genus.[7]

Description

Life restoration.

Size estimates of Tarchia have been largely based on Dyoplosaurus giganteus, the holotype of which is one of the largest ankylosaurian individuals known. This would make Tarchia the longest known Asian ankylosaur, with an estimated body length of 8 metres (26 ft).[8] Confusingly, the skull size often mentioned, with a length of 40 centimetres (16 in) and width of 45 centimetres (18 in), was again based on specimen PIN 3142/250, a much smaller individual. The holotypes of Tarchia kielanae and Minotaurasaurus also indicate a medium size. In 2016, Gregory S. Paul had estimated a body length of 5.5 meters (18 ft) and a weight of 2.5 tonnes (2.75 short tons) suggesting that Minotaurasaurus was a juvenile of the species.[9]

As an ankylosaurid, Tarchia would have had a broad, low-slung body, positioned on strong short legs. The body would have been protected by skin ossifications, named osteoderms. It probably had a bony tail club, for active defence against predators.

Tarchia had previously been distinguished from Saichania on the basis of its relatively larger basicranium, an unfused paroccipital process-quadrate contact and, based on PIN 3142/250, the fact that the premaxillary rostrum is wider than the maximum distance between the tooth rows in the maxillaries. In 2014, Arbour reported two distinguishing traits apart from those known exclusively from the holotype of Minotaurasaurus; the back of the head is visible in top view; and a deep groove runs along the front and outer side of the squamosal horn, and at the front it surrounds around an accessory osteoderm placed on the rear supraorbital, forming a deep furrow.[4]

The 2016 redescription of Tarchia notes that it differs from Saichania in having a postorbital fossa (which separates the squamosal horn from the supraorbital) and an accessory osteoderm; the occiput being visible in dorsal view; the large, deep braincase; the foramen magnum being higher than it is wide; and the nuchal osteoderms being taller laterally than medially. In addition, it differs from both Saichania and Minotaurasaurus in that it lacks postocular caputegulae (or small, polygonal bony plates behind the orbit) and has a proportionally high occiput in caudal view.[7] The study additionally found that PIN 3142/250 (i.e. T. teresae) can be distinguished from T. kielanae in that the accessory osteoderm is not fused to the roof of the skull, the quadrate and paroccipital process are not fused, the back of the skull roof is strongly sculptured, and the openings for the fourth to twelfth cranial nerves is bifurcated.[7]

Much information given about Tarchia in older work refers to PIN 3142/250 (which was briefly referred to Saichania until it was named as T. teresae in 2016). In 2001, it was stated that, in Tarchia, wear facets indicative of tooth-to-tooth occlusion are present;[10] this likely does not refer to the holotype specimen, since in the holotype no teeth are preserved.

Phylogeny

Vickaryous et alii in 2004 stated that Tarchia was basal to two distinct clades of Late Cretaceous ankylosaurids: one comprising North American taxa (Ankylosaurus, Euoplocephalus) and the other comprising Asian taxa (Pinacosaurus spp., Saichania, Tianzhenosaurus, Talarurus).[11] However, this was again based on PIN 3142/250, the characters of which usually defined the operational taxonomic unit named Tarchia in the various cladistic analyses. Remarkably, Tarchia and Saichania nevertheless in these analyses often occupied very different positions.

ZPAL MgD I/113, a specimen with skin impressions referred to the dubious T. cf. gigantea

The following cladogram is based on a 2015 phylogenetic analysis of the Ankylosaurinae conducted by Arbour and Currie:[12]

Ankylosaurinae	Crichtonpelta       Tsagantegia     Zhejiangosaurus     Pinacosaurus         Saichania       Tarchia     Zaraapelta       Ankylosaurini   Dyoplosaurus         Talarurus     Nodocephalosaurus           Ankylosaurus     Anodontosaurus       Euoplocephalus       Scolosaurus     Ziapelta

A limited phylogenetic analysis conducted in the 2016 redescription of Tarchia, focusing on the interrelationships between Tarchia, Saichania, and Minotaurasaurus, is reproduced below.[7]

	Minotaurasaurus       Zaraapelta       Saichania       T. kielanae     T. teresae           Pinacosaurus

Palaeobiology

The rocks in which Tarchia fossils were found likely represent eolian dunes and interdune environments, with small intermittent lakes and seasonal streams. Hence, we know that Tarchia was a desert animal. On the other hand, well-watered forest would have been present. Tarchia would have been preyed upon by Tarbosaurus.[9]

Paleopathology

One skull of Tarchia shows tooth marks identified as belonging to the tyrannosaurid, Tarbosaurus, indicating the theropod hunted the ankylosaurid.[13]

See also

• Timeline of ankylosaur research
• 2017 in archosaur paleontology

References

1. Maryańska, T. 1977. "Ankylosauridae (Dinosauria) from Mongolia". Palaeontologia Polonica 37: 85-151
2. Tumanova, T. A. 1977. "New data on the ankylosaur Tarchia gigantea", Paleontological Journal 11: 480-486
3. T.A. Tumanova, 1987, Pantsirnyye dinozavry Mongolii, Trudy Sovmestnaya Sovetsko-Mongol'skaya Paleontologicheskaya Ekspeditsiya 32, 80 pp
4. Arbour, Victoria Megan, 2014. Systematics, evolution, and biogeography of the ankylosaurid dinosaurs. Ph.D thesis, University of Alberta. https://era.library.ualberta.ca/public/.../Arbour_Victoria_Spring2014.pdf%5B%5D
5. Victoria M. Arbour, Nicolai L. Lech-Hernes, Tom E. Guldberg, Jørn H. Hurum, and Philip J. Currie, 2013, "An ankylosaurid dinosaur from Mongolia with in situ armour and keratinous scale impressions", Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 58(1): 55-64
6. Victoria M. Arbour, Philip J. Currie and Demchig Badamgarav, 2014, "The ankylosaurid dinosaurs of the Upper Cretaceous Baruungoyot and Nemegt formations of Mongolia", Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 172(3): 631–652
7. Paul Penkalski; Tatiana Tumanova (2016). "The cranial morphology and taxonomic status of Tarchia (Dinosauria: Ankylosauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia". Cretaceous Research. in press. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2016.10.004.
8. Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011) Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages, Winter 2010 Appendix.
9. Paul, G.S., 2016, The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs 2nd Edition, Princeton University Press p. 261
10. Barrett, P.M. 2001. "Tooth wear and possible jaw action in Scelidosaurus harrisonii and a review of feeding mechanisms in other thyreophoran dinoaurs", in Carpenter, K. (ed.) The Armored Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. pp. 25–52
11. Vickaryous, Maryańska, and Weishampel, 2004, Chapter Seventeen: "Ankylosauria", in: The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.
12. Arbour, V. M.; Currie, P. J. (2015). "Systematics, phylogeny and palaeobiogeography of the ankylosaurid dinosaurs". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology: 1–60. doi:10.1080/14772019.2015.1059985.
13. Holtz, Jr., Thomas (2007). Dinosaurs: the most complete, up-to-date encyclopedia for dinosaur lovers of all ages. New York, New York: Random House, Inc. p. 241. ISBN 9780375824197.

External links

• Tarchia in the Dino Directory