[ad_1]
A new and mysterious duck-billed dinosaur known as Aquilarhinus palimentus was discovered in Texas, shocking paleontologists.
Known for its aquiline nose and its wide lower jaw, Aquilarhinus palimentus was discovered in the 1980s in Big Bend National Park, but it was not until the 1990s that researchers discovered an arched nasal crest that was previously thought to belong to another dinosaur. The odd lower jaw, which "has the shape of two trowels juxtaposed side by side", was also found. Paleontologists recently analyzed the skull and discovered that it was more primitive than Gryposaurus and the two main groups of duckbill dinosaurs.
"This new animal is one of the most primitive hadrosaurids known and can therefore help us understand how and why the ornamentation on the head has evolved, as well as where the place where the group initially evolved and emigrated, "was the lead author of the study, Dr. Albert. Prieto-Márquez of the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, said in a statement.
Aquilarhinus palimentus. (Credit: ICRA Art)
A NEW MYSTERY LEZARD FOUND IN THE INTERIOR OF A FLYING DINOSAUR OF 125 MILLION YEARS
"Its existence adds new evidence to the growing hypothesis, always in the air, that the band started in the southeastern region of the U," added Prieto-Márquez.
"The recognition of this lineage adds to the diversity of non-saurolophid hadrosaurids and suggests the existence of a diversity of duck-billed dinosaurs up to then unknown apart from the saurolophine-lambéosaurine radiation", summarizes the study.
The Hadrosaurids were the most prevalent herbivore types in the late Mesozoic Era and all had a snout of similar appearance. However, Aquilarhinus, with its large jaws that met "in a particular W-shape," was very different from other hadrosaurids of the time, which met in a U-shape to grow plants.
It is likely that Aquilarhinus would have been shoveling through loose sediments to gather loose-rooted aquatic plants in the area that is now the Chihuahuan Desert.
"The cranial ridges were ancestral for the first hadrosaurids and evolved before the saurolophide radiation," adds the summary. "Ancestral crests were" solid "and consisted of arched nasals, which were preserved among the kritosaurines and then modified in the various peak morphologies observed among the derived saurolophines."
The Mesozoic era is divided into Triassic (251-199.6 million years ago), Jurassic (199.6-145.5 million years ago) and Cretaceous (145, 5-65.5 million years), according to the University of California at Berkeley. The Mesozoic era has witnessed massive extinguishing events at the beginning and end, including the asteroid that crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
The study was published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
[ad_2]
Source link