#rhinorex

Fun fact! A long time ago, I was in an elevator with the first and only known specimen of rhinorex, a hadrosaur! I don't remember it clearly, but my father does. It was fun. :)

ive also visited the nanotyrannus specimen that was officially named Nanotyrannus last year when someone on my aunt's former roommate's paleontologist team took another look at the tyranosaur specimen they had. ^_^

By José Carlos Cortés on @ryuukibart​

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Name: Rhinorex condrupus 

Name Meaning: Nose King

First Described: 2014

Described By: Gates & Scheetz

Classification: Dinosauria, Ornithischia, Genasauria, Neornithischia, Cerapoda, Ornithopoda, Iguanodontia, Dryomorpha, Ankylopollexia, Styracosterna, Hadrosauriformes, Hadrosauroidea, Hadrosauridae, Saurolophinae, “Anatosauria”, “Gryposauria”, Kritosaurini

Rhinorex is a recently described Kritosaurin from the Neslen Formation in Utah, and if you’ve noticed a pattern so far, almost all Kristosaurins appear to be from what is now southern North America. It lived about 75 million years ago in the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous - like other Kritosaurins - and it was very closely related to Gryposaurus and it claded very close to Gryposaurus in analyses. It also, interestingly enough, lived in that region in between Gryposaurus and Kritosaurus, filling a gap in the history of that region in which no hadrosaurs were known. It probably lived in more coastal environments than Gryposaurus, due to its discovery in estuarine sediments, which is ironic, as its particular nasal crest shape has a small projection that gives it a ‘fish hook’ appearance. I wouldn’t, however, say this means they used it for fishing. 

Source:

Gates, T.A., R. Scheetz. 2014. A new saurolophine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Campanian of Utah, North America. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. doi: 10.1080/14772019.2014.950614

Day 15: Rhinorex, "Nose King"

With a name like Rhinorex, you would expect some rhinoceros-horned tyrannosaur capable of taking out the biggest of sauropods.. but NOPE. Rhinorex is simply a hadrosaur from Cretaceous Utah...with an incredibly large schnoz. 

The weirdest thing about this dino is not its nose, but where it existed in space and time. It existed at the same time and approximately the same place as Gryposaurus, but they had evolved separately from each other. Southern Utah was a hot spot of strange instances of isolated evolution at the time, and Rhinorex is a perfect example of this.