Open Paleo

Malefica

Prieto-Márquez & Wagner, 2022 ma-LEF-ee-cuh

From Latin 'malefica', meaning 'witch' or 'sorceress', referring to its discovery in Bruja Canyon ('bruja' being Spanish for 'witch').

83.6–72.2 million years ago Campanian, Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Malefica is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) Aguja Formation of Texas. The type and only species is Malefica deckerti.

Diagnosis

  1. Deep and broad moat-like space separating anterodorsal promontory of lateral surface from lateral surface of dorsal process
  2. Anterodorsal promontory extends posteriorly as prominent ridge onto jugal facet
  3. Inflated block-like jugal process
  4. Widely arcuate anterodorsal promontory of lateral surface
  5. Jugal process ending nearly dorsal to facet for jugal ventral spur
  6. At least seven peribuccal foramina with main axis nearly horizontal

Species

Malefica deckerti Prieto-Márquez & Wagner, 2022

Type species

Named for Frank Deckert, the specimen's discoverer and former superintendent of Big Bend National Park.

Holotype
TxVP 41917-1 , Texas Memorial Museum, Austin, Texas, USA (used for collections now housed in the Vertebrate Paleontology Collections at the Jackson School Museum of Earth History, Austin, Texas, USA), now called the Texas Science and Natural History Museum
Material
Partial left maxilla
Horizon
middle Alto Shale Member, Aguja Formation, Campanian, Late Cretaceous , 83.6–72.2 million years ago
Locality
Bruja Canyon, Texas, United States

References

  1. Prieto-Márquez, A.; Wagner, J. R. (2022). A new 'duck-billed' dinosaur (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) from the upper Campanian of Texas points to a greater diversity of early hadrosaurid offshoots. Cretaceous Research 143. Elsevier BV. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2022.105416 prieto-márquez2022b
  2. Lehman, T. M.; Wick, S. L.; Macon, C. C.; Wagner, J. R.; Waggoner, K. J.; Brink, A. A.; Shiller, T. A., II (2024). Stratigraphy and depositional history of the Aguja Formation (Upper Cretaceous, Campanian) of West Texas, southwestern USA. Geosphere 20(3): 825-879. Geological Society of America. doi:10.1130/GES02662.1

    Assigns this species' biozone to the middle part of the Alto Shale Member.

    lehman2024a