Adynomosaurus
From Greek 'adynamos' meaning 'weak' or 'powerless' and 'sauros' meaning 'lizard', referring to its underdeveloped shoulder musculature.
Adynomosaurus is a genus of lambeosaurine dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of what is now Catalonia, Spain. First discovered in 2012, it was named in 2019 with the type and only species being Adynomosaurus arcanus. It is only known from scant material, but is distinguished from other hadrosaurs by its weakly developed shoulder blade which would have had underdeveloped musculature, which lends it its scientific name, partially from the Greek word for "weak". Its exact relationships with other hadrosaurs remain unresolved, with it not consistently being recovered as a relative of any other specific genera, though some studies have allied it with Tsintaosaurini or even found it outside of Hadrosauridae. It would have lived as part of a diverse coastal estuary ecosystem, made up of meandering rivers and mud flats. The discovery of Adynomosaurus adds to the very incomplete fossil record of hadrosaurid dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous of Europe, and it fits into a picture of major ecological turnover that was occurring during the Maastrichtian stage in the region.
Diagnosis
- Scapula with shallow blade: maximum depth of distal scapular blade is less than 75% of the depth of the proximal end (measured from dorsal margin of acromion process to ventral apex of glenoid).
Species
Adynomosaurus arcanus Prieto-Márquez et al., 2019
Type species
From Latin 'arcanus' meaning 'secret' or 'occult', referring to the scant and uninformative nature of the hadrosaur fossil record from the South-Central Pyrenean Basin.
- Holotype
- MCD 7125 , Museu de la Conca Dellà
- Material
- Left scapula.
- Horizon
- Conques Formation, Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous , 72.2–66.0 million years ago
- Locality
- Costa de les Solanes, near Basturs village, Lleida, Spain
References
-
Prieto-Márquez, A.; Fondevilla, V.; Sellés, A. G.; Wagner, J. R.; Galobart, À. (2019). Adynomosaurus arcanus, a new lambeosaurine dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Ibero-Armorican Island of the European archipelago. Cretaceous Research 96: 19-37. Elsevier BV. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2018.12.002
Reads the holotype horizon as an oxbow lake facies associated with meandering stream deposits, above the lacustrine limestones of the Basturs Member.
prieto-márquez2019a