New Specimens of <i>Scutellosaurus Lawleri</i> Colbert, 1981, from the Lower Jurassic Kayenta Formation in Arizona Elucidate the Early Evolution of Thyreophoran Dinosaurs

We describe new specimens of the ornithischian dinosaur <i>Scutellosaurus lawleri</i> Colbert, 1981, from the Lower Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona and discuss their systematic importance. The new specimens represent at least 46 individuals and include two associated skeletons that preserve regions that were poorly known until now, including the skull and pelvis. Computed tomography (CT) assisted our interpretation of these specimens. Using an ornithischian data matrix, we first tested whether the two associated skeletons were justifiably assigned to <i>Scutellosaurus lawleri</i> and found that they group unequivocally with the holotype and paratype specimens. This enabled scoring of 35 character states that were previously unknown, raising the scoring completeness of <i>Scutellosaurus lawleri</i> from 52% to 67%. The results recovered <i>Lesothosaurus diagnosticus</i> as the basal-most member of Neornithischia, while corroborating the monophyly of Thyreophora and <i>Scutellosaurus lawleri</i> as its most basally branching member. In terms of numbers of specimens, <i>Scutellosaurus lawleri</i> is now the most abundant dinosaur known in any Early Jurassic vertebrate fauna. The presence of a second thyreophoran in the Kayenta Formation, along with the presence of Early Jurassic thyreophorans in Europe and Asia, suggests that Thyreophora may have originated in the northern hemisphere. The ornithischians from the Kayenta Formation support a pattern of dinosaurian diversification after the end-Triassic extinction in North America, if not a broader area, that was fueled by independent northward dispersals from the southern hemisphere, supporting dispersal as an early driver of dinosaurian evolution.