Amurosaurus
Name:
Amurosaurus
(Amur lizard - after the Amur River).
Phonetic: A-mur-o-sore-us.
Named By: Yuri Bolotsky and Sergei Kurzanov -
1991.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ornithopoda, Lambeosaurinae, Hadrosauridae.
Species: A. riabinini
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: At least 6 meters long, maybe more.
Known locations: Russia - Udurchukan Formation.
Time period: Late Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Remains of many individuals
though these are mostly preserved in a bone bed of remains.
Amurosaurus
has been based only upon very partial remains, though these were
taken from a bonebed of multiple dinosaurs, and further remains are
likely to be in there somewhere. Slowly the picture of a
lambeosaurine hadrosaurid
(the kind with a hollow crest) has been
pieced together with an appearance similar to that of the earlier
Corythosaurus
from North America. One of the most interesting things
about Amurosaurus is that once again we can see a
lambeosaurine
hadrosaurid living in Asia near the end of the Cretaceous at a time
when they seem to have largely vanished from North America (instead
solid to no crested saurolophine hadrosaurid were predominant
here). This might actually correspond with one theory where the
lambeosaurines are surmised to have evolved in Asia and then crossed
over to North America via a land bridge.
The
bone bed where fossils of Amurosaurus were found
also has the remains
of another hadrosaurid called Kerberosaurus
alongside them. Many of
these bones also bear the tooth marks of various theropod dinosaurs,
though at this stage it is only evidence of feeding. They do not yet
reveal if the dinosaurs had been killed or just scavenged by meat
eaters. Another hadrosaurid discovered near the Amur River, though
this time on the Chinese side is Charonosaurus.
Predators of
Amurosaurus may have included Asian genera of tyrannosaurs
such as
Tarbosaurus.
Further reading
- [The hadrosaurs of the Amur Region.], Y. L. Bolotsky
& S. K. Kurzanov - 1991.
- The lambeosaurine dinosaur Amurosaurus riabinini,
from the
Maastrichtian of Far Eastern Russia, P. Godefroit, Y. L.
Bolotsky & J. Van Itterbeeck - 2004.
- Recent advances on study of hadrosaurid dinosaurs in Heilongjiang
(Amur) River area between China and Russia, P. Godefroit, P.
Lauters, J. Van Itterbeeck, Y. Bolotsky & I. Y.
Bolotsky - 2011.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |
 |