Strange New Species of Duckbill Dinosaur Identified



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<div data-thumb = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/tmb/2019/strangenewsp.jpg" data-src = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/ newman / gfx / news / 2019 / strangenewsp.jpg "data-sub-html ="Aquilarhinus palimentus. Credit: ICRA Art ">

<img src = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2019/strangenewsp.jpg" alt = "Strange new duck-billed dinosaur species identified" title = "Aquilarhinus palimentus. Credit: ICRA Art "/>
Aquilarhinus palimentus. Credit: ICRA Art

The most complete skull of a duckbill dinosaur in Big Bend National Park, Texas, is revealed in Journal of Systematic Palaeontology as a new genus and species, Aquilarhinus palimentus. This dinosaur was named for its aquiline nose and its wide lower jaw in the form of two juxtaposed trowels.

In the 1980s, Tom Lehman, a professor at Texas Tech University (then a master's student), was researching rock layers at Rattle Snake Mountain and discovering heavily altered bones. He brought them together with two other people from the University of Texas at Austin, but some were glued to each other, making them impossible to study. Research conducted in the 1990s revealed an arched nasal crest, considered distinct from the Gryposaurus hadrosauride. At the same time, the particular lower jaw has been recognized. However, the specimen spent additional years waiting for a complete description and only in a recent analysis did the researchers realize 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, so it can help us understand how and why the ornamentation on the head has evolved, as well as the place where it is found. the group initially evolved and emigrated, "says Dr. Albert Prieto-, lead author. Márquez of the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, near Barcelona. "His existence adds further evidence to the growing hypothesis, always in the air, that the band would have started in the southeastern United States."

<div data-thumb = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/tmb/2019/1-strangenewsp.jpg" data-src = "https: //3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn. net / newman / gfx / news / 2019/1-strangenewsp.jpg "data-sub-html ="Aquilarhinus palimentus. Credit: ICRA Art ">

<img src = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2019/1-strangenewsp.jpg" alt = "Strange new duck-billed dinosaur species identified" title = "Aquilarhinus palimentus. Credit: ICRA Art "/>
Aquilarhinus palimentus. Credit: ICRA Art

The duckbilled dinosaurs, also called hadrosaurids, were the most common herbivorous dinosaurs in the late Mesozoic Era and all had a snout of similar appearance. The front of the jaws is U-shaped to support a cup-shaped beak used for growing plants. The beaks of some species are wider than others, but there was no evidence of a significantly different shape and, therefore, probably also a different feeding style in duckbills up to the discovery of Aquilarhinus. The lower jaws of Aquilarhinus meet in a particular W shape, creating a wide, flattened shovel.

About 80 million years ago, this particular dinosaur would have shoveled into moist, wet sediments to collect loose-rooted aquatic plants in the tidal marshes of an ancient delta, where we now find ourselves. the desert of Chihuahuan. When the dinosaur died, some of its bones were transported downstream by the tide and lodged in the vegetation. The tidal wave twice a day dropped the silt that built the channel bank around its body, fossilizing thick iron stone bones.

The jaw and other characteristics of the specimen show that it does not correspond to the main group of duckbill dinosaurs called Saurolophidae. It is more primitive than this group, suggesting that there may have been a greater number of lineages than previously recognized ones that evolved before the great radiation that gave birth to the bewildering range of unembellished, full and with hollow ridge. Most saurolophids had cranial bone ridges of different shapes and sizes. Aquilarhinus also had a bone ridge, although simple, shaped like a hunchbacked nose. The discovery of a solid ridge outside the major radiation of hadrosaurides confirms the hypothesis that all ridges are derived from an ancestor common to the simple hunchbacked nose.

<div data-thumb = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/tmb/2019/2-strangenewsp.jpg" data-src = "https: //3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn. net / newman / gfx / news / hires / 2019/2-strangenewsp.jpg "data-sub-html =" The dental of Aquilarhinus, showing the unusual end of the mandible. Credit: Albert Prieto-Marquez; material housed in the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections at the University of Texas at Austin ">

<img src = "https://3c1703fe8d.site.internapcdn.net/newman/csz/news/800/2019/2-strangenewsp.jpg" alt = "Strange new duck-billed dinosaur species identified" title = " The dental of Aquilarhinus, showing the unusual end of the mandible. Credit: Albert Prieto-Marquez; material housed in the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections of the University of Texas at Austin "/>
The dental of Aquilarhinus, showing the unusual end of the mandible. Credit: Albert Prieto-Marquez; material housed in the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections at the University of Texas at Austin


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More information:
Albert Prieto-Márquez et al, A spiny dinosaur with a trophic specialization of the early Campanian of Trans-Pecos, Texas, and the ancestral hadrosaurian crest, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology (2019). DOI: 10.1080 / 14772019.2019.1625078

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Quote:
Strange new duck-billed dinosaur species identified (July 15, 2019)
recovered on July 15, 2019
from https://phys.org/news/2019-07-strange-species-duck-billed-dinosaur.html

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