Cubiculum ornatus Roberts et al., 2007

Hedeny, Magdy El, Mohesn, Sara, Tantawy, Abdel-aziz, El-Sabbagh, Ahmed, AbdelGawad, Mohamed & El-Kheir, Gebely Abu, 2023, Bioerosion traces on the Campanian turtle remains: New data from the lagoonal deposits of the Quseir Formation, Kharga Oasis, Egypt, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 40) 26 (3), pp. 1-21 : 7

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https://doi.org/ 10.26879/1315

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scientific name

Cubiculum ornatus Roberts et al., 2007
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Cubiculum ornatus Roberts et al., 2007

( Figure 3D, E View FIGURE 3 )

Material. Up to 35 chambers on seven carapace remains (NVP006‒012).

Description. Elongate, straight, or arcuate chambers with semi-circular ends, occurring in isolated dense and rarely overlapping concentrations. Boring long axes are parallel to the bone surfaces. Borings differ in their sizes; long axes: 1.8‒10.8 mm; borings depth: 1.0‒ 1.5 mm. Boring walls bear well-developed ornament (bioglyphs).

Discussion. The ichnospecies Cubiculum ornatus represents the most common ichnotaxon in our assemblage. Dimensions and overall form of the specimens closely match bone borings described from the Upper Cretaceous of Madagascar ( Roberts et al., 2007). These borings represent pupation chambers made by dermestid beetles ( Kitching, 1980; Martin and West, 1995; Hasiotis et al., 1999; Ozeki et al., 2020; Perea et al., 2020). The presence of these borings suggests that the turtle bones had a relatively long time of exposure, which was sufficient to allow beetles to posture, but not long enough to allow weathering to destroy them.

Producer. Generally, Cubiculum ichnospecies have been previously documented and interpreted as dermestid beetle borings in many palaeontological studies (e.g., Martin and West, 1995; Hasiotis et al., 1999; Laudet and Antoine, 2004; Roberts et al., 2007; Britt et al., 2008; Bader et al., 2009; Saneyoshi et al., 2011).

Stratigraphic and geographic distribution. Campanian of the Qarn Ganah, Kharga Oasis (this study). This ichnospecies has been recorded from the Middle‒Upper Jurassic of South Africa (Britt et al., 2008; Xing et al., 2015), Upper Cretaceous of Brazil, Morocco ( Ibrahim et al., 2014; Francischini et al., 2016) to Pleistocene of Brazil ( West and Hasiotis, 2007; Dominato et al., 2009).

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