Sunday 3 April 2016

Datonglong tianzhenensis: A new non-Hadrosaurid Hadrosauroid from the Late Cretaceous of Shanxi Province, China.

The Late Cretaceous Huiquanpu Formation of Tianzhen County in Shanxi Province, China, has been excavated for Dinosaur remains since the 1980s, during which time it has produced over 2300 individual specimens, including Ankylosaurs, Sauropods, Theropods and Hadrosaurids.

In a paper published in the journal Vertebrata PalAsiatica on 1 March 2016, Xu Shi-Chao of the Shanxi Museum of Geology, You Hai-Lu of the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Jai-Wei of the Faculty of Geology at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Wang Suo-Zhu and Yi Jian, also of the Shanxi Museum of Geology, and Jia Lei, again of the Shanxi Museum of Geology and of the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, describe a new species of non-Hadrosaurid Hadrosauroid (Ornithischian Dinosaur more closely related to the Hadrosaurs than to the Iguanadontids, but not considered to be a true Hadrosaurid) from the Huiquanpu Formation.

The new species is named Datonglong tianzhenensis, where 'Datonglong' means 'Dragon of Datong' (the major city in the area where the fossil was found) and 'tianzhenensis' means 'from Tianzhen'. The species is described from a single almost complete right dentary, 34 cm in length, missing its rostral end (back) and the rostral part of the tooth row.

Photos of right dentary of Datonglong tianzhenensis in (A) lateral view, (B) medial view, (C) dorsal view, (D) caudal view; (E) close-up of partial dentition in (B), not in scale. Xu et al. (2016).

See also...

http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/probrachylophosaurus-bergei-new-species.htmlProbrachylophosaurus bergei: A new species of Brachylophosaurin Hadrosaur from the Late Cretaceous of northern Montana. Hadrosaurs were large, herbivorous Ornithischian Dinosaurs, commonly referred to as...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/ugrunaaluk-kuukpikensis-new-species-of.htmlUgrunaaluk kuukpikensis: A new species of Hadrosaurid Dinosaur from the End Cretaceous of Alaska.                                       The Prince Creek Formation of Northern Alaska is noted for the production of numerous End...
http://sciencythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/a-hadrosaurid-dinosaur-trackway-from.htmlA Hadrosaurid Dinosaur trackway from the Denali National Park in Alaska.                        The preserved tracks of ancient animals such as Dinosaurs can provide insights into their lifestyles and biology that could not be determined by examination of bones alone, although such data needs to be interpreted carefully. Such studies can potentially provide data on herding or other social structures among extinct animals, as well as data on the movement of...

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