Monday, December 07, 2015

The Giving of December. Willinakaqe

A late Cretaceous era hadrosaur,‭ ‬Willinakaqe was described from a collection of disarticulated remains of several individuals.‭ ‬Although no single individual was complete,‭ ‬the numbers of Willinakaqe involved at least allowed missing elements of one individual to be covered by others,‭ ‬allowing for a more confident reconstruction of this dinosaur.‭ ‬Willinakaqe has been classified as a saurolophine hadrosaurid because of the lack of a hollow head crest,‭ ‬something that is the hallmark of the lambeosaurine hadrosaurids.‭ ‬This ties in with the common observation that as the Cretaceous period came to a close,‭ ‬most lambeosaurine hadrosaurids had been replaced by saurolophine hadrosaurids.‭ ‬Willinakaqe is generally considered to be closely related to Secernosaurus,‭ ‬the first hadrosaurid dinosaur to be identified as living in South America.
       As a relatively large herbivorous dinosaur,‭ ‬Willinakaqe would have been a viable target for large late Cretaceous period predators such as Carnotaurus.

No comments: