We describe the first dinosaur skeletal remains found in the Czech Republic, consisting of one complete femur and indeterminable bone fragments. They were recovered from the upper Cenomanian near-shore marine sediments deposited on the slopes of an ancient archipelago, several kilometres north of the larger Rhenish-Bohemian Island that was situated in what is now the middle of Europe. Sediments yielding dinosaur remains are of late Cenomanian age, Inoceramus pictus-I. pictus bohemicus inoceramid zone of the local lithostratigraphic unit, the Peruc-Korycany Formation. These are the first uncontested dinosaurian fossils reported from this formation and also the first Cenomanian dinosaur record in Central Europe. They document a small ornithopod belonging to an iguanodontid species comparable with similar Late Cretaceous European forms. The herbivorous dinosaur lived among a vegetation transitional between salt marsh flora, with abundant halophytic conifer Frenelopsis alata; and an alluvial plain assemblage dominated by lauroid angiosperms.

Key words: Dinosauria, Iguanodontidae, palaeoenvironment, vegetation, Cenomanian, Bohemian Cretaceous Basin, Czech Republic, Europe.

Oldřich Fejfar [fejfar@natur.cuni.cz], Martin Košťák [kostak@natur.cuni.cz], and Martin Mazuch [mmazuch@centrum.cz], Ústav geologie a paleontologie, Přírodovědecká fakulta Univerzity Karlovy v Praze, Albertov 6, Praha 2, 128 43, Czech Republic; Jiří Kvaček [jiri.kvacek@nm.cz], Národní Museum, Václavské náměstí 1, Praha 1, 110 00, Czech Republic; Michal Moučka [mmoucka@c−box.cz], Puškinská 657, 284 01 Kutná Hora, Czech Republic.