#gobihadros

Merry day two of Dino-December! Today's animal of the day is Gobihadros mongoliensis!

Image credit: cisiopurple on DeviantArt

Gobihadros mongoliensis was a species of hadrosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous period. It was first discovered by a team of Mongolian and Japanese paleontologists during an expedition to the Batanshiree Formation that took place from 1993 to 2004. However, it wasn't until 2019 that Gobihadros was finally formally named and described by paleontologists Khishigjav Tsogtbaatar, David Bruce Weishampel, David Christopher Evans, and Mahito Watabe. Its genus is named after the famous Gobi Desert, and its species name is a reference to Mongolia, where it was found. Gobihadros was pretty basal as far as hadrosaurs go, but it did have several traits to set it apart from its relatives, such as uniquely shaped teeth and a conical spike-like claw on its first finger.

Image credit: PaleoNeolitic

Gobihadros!

Gobihadros

Gobihadros — рід базальних гадрозавроїдних динозаврів, що мешкали в Азії в пізньому крейдяному періоді на території сучасної формації Баян-Ширех (сеноман-сантон). Рід містить лише типовий вид Gobihadros mongoliensis. Його приблизна довжина становила 7,5 м.

Art by: @knuppitalism-with-ue

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This Week in #Dinosaur News: A new #hadrosauroid, a new #ankylosaur, and a #Tyrannosaurus rex on ebay

Gobihadros, the new hadrosauroid from Mongolia, known from a nearly complete body and separate skull. From doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0208480

Here’s what came out this week in dinosaur news:

A new hadrosauroid, Gobihadros, was described from a complete skeleton and skull source

A juvenile T. rex is for sale on eBay, stirring up quite a bit of controversy source

A new ankylosaur has been…

Bisticeratops froeseorum

Artwork by sauriazoicillus, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Froese’s Dééł Náázíní Horned Face 

Time: 74 million years ago (Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous) 

Location: Farmington Member, Kirtland Formation, New Mexico, United States 

Bisticeratops is an early Chasmosaurine, known from a partial skull found in the Kirtland Formation. Yet another of a largely growing number of Chasmosaurine taxa from the Campanian of North America, it appeared to resemble Pentaceratops, but was more closely related to later ceratopsians known from the Kirtland formation, as well as one unnamed taxon from the Almond Formation in Wyoming. Interestingly, Bisticeratops shows signs of bite marks from tyrannosaurids, which apparently had begun to heal prior to death. However, we do not know which tyrannosaurid may have left these marks - while the Kirtland Formation is a well studied environment, the Farmington Member has never yielded dinosaurian fossils before now, taking place earlier than the more famous De-Na-Zin of the formation. Like other iterations, the Kirtland was a coastal plain along the western interior seaway, preserving a muddy and sandy environment that would have been filled with a variety of subtropical plants. It is presumable that other dinosaurs lived here besides Bisticeratops and a tyrannosaurid - hadrosaurs, ankylosaurs, pachycephalosaurs, ornithomimosaurs, and dromaeosaurs would all have been possible members of this ecosystem based on the following and preceding ones from this formation.

Gobihadros mongoliensis

Artwork by KookaburraSurvivor, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Hadrosaur from the Gobi of Mongolia 

Time: 90 to 86 million years ago (Turonian to Coniacian stages of the Late Cretaceous)

Location: Upper Beds, Bayan Shireh Formation, Bayshin Tsav, Baynshire, Char Teeg, Khongil Tsav, Khoorai Tsav, Mongolia 

Gobihadros is an early almost-hadrosaur from the Bayan Shireh Formation, one of the rare environments preserving the evolution of dinosaurs during the start of the Late Cretaceous epoch - essentially, when the charismatic dinosaurs of the Latest Cretaceous, such as hadrosaurs, first evolved. Multiple specimens are known from throughout the formation, making Gobihadros the best known early hadrosauroid from Asia. Adults reached sizes of about 7.5 meters long, and it had as many as three teeth per position within the lower jaw (this is high even for early hadrosaurs, more similar to those of later taxa, indicating convergent/parallel evolution). It also still retained the conical thumb claw of earlier ornithopods like Iguanodon. An older individual of the species showed signs of calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease, a condition of age causing restriction in the joints and pain during movement. Gobihadros lived in a semi-arid plain environment littered with lakes and rivers, with meandering bodies of water draining into the sea on the coast of China. Flowering plants were present in this environment, as well as a wide variety of animal life - sharks, Azhdarchids, turtles, and other dinosaurs like Alectrosaurus (probably), a troodontid, Erlikosaurus, Caenagnathoids, Garudimimus, Graciliceratops, a possible Carcharodontosaur (which would be a late surviving species), Talarurus, and potentially many more species waiting to be formally named.

Factfiles:

Artwork by Leonardo HerSan, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Reptile Shaman of the Red Earth 

Time: 73 to 69 million years ago (Campanian to Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous)

Location: Allen Formation, Patagonia, Argentina 

Kelumapusaura is another addition to the growing number of South American hadrosaurs, a radiation of this group that was previously considered unlikely but appears to have happened towards the very end of the Cretaceous period - thus showing that hadrosaurs reached almost every continent, except perhaps Australia! It was an average sized hadrosaur, reaching about 9 meters long, and as a member of the Kritosaurs it probably had enlarged nasal passages for sound production and communication. It would have lived in social groups, like other hadrosaurs. In the Allen Formation, Kelumapusaura lived in a coastal environment of fluvial plains, ephemeral lakes, tidal flats, and estuaries with extreme semiarid seasonality. Evaporites would accumulate in the arid seasons, only to be washed away as the wet season returned. Many dinosaurs are known from this formation: Aeolosaurus, Austroraptor, Bonapartesaurus, Bonapartenykus, Bonatitan, Lamarqueavis, Lapampasaurus, Limenavis, Menucocelsior, Niebla, Panamericansaurus, Patagopelta, Pellegrinisaurus, Quilmesaurus, Rocasaurus, and Willinakaqe. In addition, Kelumapusaura shared its home with pterosaurs such as Aerotitan, tuatarans, plesiosaurs, frogs, and a variety of mammals. 

Gobihadros mongoliensis

Artwork by KookaburraSurvivor, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Hadrosaur from the Gobi of Mongolia 

Time: 90 to 86 million years ago (Turonian to Coniacian stages of the Late Cretaceous)

Location: Upper Beds, Bayan Shireh Formation, Bayshin Tsav, Baynshire, Char Teeg, Khongil Tsav, Khoorai Tsav, Mongolia  Gobihadros is an early almost-hadrosaur from the Bayan Shireh Formation, one of the rare environments preserving the evolution of dinosaurs during the start of the Late Cretaceous epoch - essentially, when the charismatic dinosaurs of the Latest Cretaceous, such as hadrosaurs, first evolved. Multiple specimens are known from throughout the formation, making Gobihadros the best known early hadrosauroid from Asia. Adults reached sizes of about 7.5 meters long, and it had as many as three teeth per position within the lower jaw (this is high even for early hadrosaurs, more similar to those of later taxa, indicating convergent/parallel evolution). It also still retained the conical thumb claw of earlier ornithopods like Iguanodon. An older individual of the species showed signs of calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease, a condition of age causing restriction in the joints and pain during movement. Gobihadros lived in a semi-arid plain environment littered with lakes and rivers, with meandering bodies of water draining into the sea on the coast of China. Flowering plants were present in this environment, as well as a wide variety of animal life - sharks, Azhdarchids, turtles, and other dinosaurs like Alectrosaurus (probably), a troodontid, Erlikosaurus, Caenagnathoids, Garudimimus, Graciliceratops, a possible Carcharodontosaur (which would be a late surviving species), Talarurus, and potentially many more species waiting to be formally named.