A review of vertebrate faunas from the Gyeongsang Supergroup (Cretaceous) in South Korea

The Early Cretaceous is rapidly bring recognized as a crucial time in the o rigin and dispersal of living vertebrate groups. Cretaceous trackways in Ko rea are among the most abundant in the world and include the smallest sauro pod tracks known, plus four avian ichnotaxa, one of which is the earliest r ecord of a bird with webbed feet. Body fossils and egg shells are less well known, however, and have been reported mainly in Korean journals. An incre ase in the rate of discovery of vertebrate fossils in recent years has resu lted in documentation of 38 localities from the entirely fluvio-lacustrine Gyeongsang Supergroup (Hauterivian to Cenomanian) in Korea. Specimens inclu de fish, turtle, crocodilian, pterosaur, and dinosaur bones, and dinosaur e ggs in nests, as well as dinosaur, bird, and pterosaur footprints. Scattere d bones have been collected ill road cuts, quarries, stream beds, and coast al exposures, but localities have yet to be systematically explored and exc avated. Nevertheless, very recent finds of articulated fish skeletons and d inosaur egg nests indicate that further exploration may be expected to yiel d better preserved, more fully associated specimens of these and additional taxa. This would provide further important data for our understanding of t his pivotal period in vertebrate evolution. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.