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Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada
Hadrosaurid (duck-billed) dinosaur bonebeds are exceedingly prevalent in upper Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian) strata from the Midwest of North America (especially Alberta, Canada, and Montana, U.S.A) but are less frequently documented from more northern regions. The Wapiti Formation (Campanian...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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PeerJ Inc.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8103918/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33987001 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11290 |
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author | Holland, Brayden Bell, Phil R. Fanti, Federico Hamilton, Samantha M. Larson, Derek W. Sissons, Robin Sullivan, Corwin Vavrek, Matthew J. Wang, Yanyin Campione, Nicolás E. |
author_facet | Holland, Brayden Bell, Phil R. Fanti, Federico Hamilton, Samantha M. Larson, Derek W. Sissons, Robin Sullivan, Corwin Vavrek, Matthew J. Wang, Yanyin Campione, Nicolás E. |
author_sort | Holland, Brayden |
collection | PubMed |
description | Hadrosaurid (duck-billed) dinosaur bonebeds are exceedingly prevalent in upper Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian) strata from the Midwest of North America (especially Alberta, Canada, and Montana, U.S.A) but are less frequently documented from more northern regions. The Wapiti Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian) of northwestern Alberta is a largely untapped resource of terrestrial palaeontological information missing from southern Alberta due to the deposition of the marine Bearpaw Formation. In 2018, the Boreal Alberta Dinosaur Project rediscovered the Spring Creek Bonebed, which had been lost since 2002, along the northern bank of the Wapiti River, southwest of Grande Prairie. Earlier excavations and observations of the Spring Creek Bonebed suggested that the site yielded young hadrosaurines. Continued work in 2018 and 2019 recovered ~300 specimens that included a minimum of eight individuals, based on the number of right humeri. The morphology of several recovered cranial elements unequivocally supports lambeosaurine affinities, making the Spring Creek sample the first documented occurrence of lambeosaurines in the Wapiti Formation. The overall size range and histology of the bones found at the site indicate that these animals were uniformly late juveniles, suggesting that age segregation was a life history strategy among hadrosaurids. Given the considerable size attained by the Spring Creek lambeosaurines, they were probably segregated from the breeding population during nesting or caring for young, rather than due to different diet and locomotory requirements. Dynamic aspects of life history, such as age segregation, may well have contributed to the highly diverse and cosmopolitan nature of Late Cretaceous hadrosaurids. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8103918 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81039182021-05-12 Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada Holland, Brayden Bell, Phil R. Fanti, Federico Hamilton, Samantha M. Larson, Derek W. Sissons, Robin Sullivan, Corwin Vavrek, Matthew J. Wang, Yanyin Campione, Nicolás E. PeerJ Evolutionary Studies Hadrosaurid (duck-billed) dinosaur bonebeds are exceedingly prevalent in upper Cretaceous (Campanian–Maastrichtian) strata from the Midwest of North America (especially Alberta, Canada, and Montana, U.S.A) but are less frequently documented from more northern regions. The Wapiti Formation (Campanian–Maastrichtian) of northwestern Alberta is a largely untapped resource of terrestrial palaeontological information missing from southern Alberta due to the deposition of the marine Bearpaw Formation. In 2018, the Boreal Alberta Dinosaur Project rediscovered the Spring Creek Bonebed, which had been lost since 2002, along the northern bank of the Wapiti River, southwest of Grande Prairie. Earlier excavations and observations of the Spring Creek Bonebed suggested that the site yielded young hadrosaurines. Continued work in 2018 and 2019 recovered ~300 specimens that included a minimum of eight individuals, based on the number of right humeri. The morphology of several recovered cranial elements unequivocally supports lambeosaurine affinities, making the Spring Creek sample the first documented occurrence of lambeosaurines in the Wapiti Formation. The overall size range and histology of the bones found at the site indicate that these animals were uniformly late juveniles, suggesting that age segregation was a life history strategy among hadrosaurids. Given the considerable size attained by the Spring Creek lambeosaurines, they were probably segregated from the breeding population during nesting or caring for young, rather than due to different diet and locomotory requirements. Dynamic aspects of life history, such as age segregation, may well have contributed to the highly diverse and cosmopolitan nature of Late Cretaceous hadrosaurids. PeerJ Inc. 2021-05-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8103918/ /pubmed/33987001 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11290 Text en © 2021 Holland et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Evolutionary Studies Holland, Brayden Bell, Phil R. Fanti, Federico Hamilton, Samantha M. Larson, Derek W. Sissons, Robin Sullivan, Corwin Vavrek, Matthew J. Wang, Yanyin Campione, Nicolás E. Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada |
title | Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada |
title_full | Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada |
title_fullStr | Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada |
title_full_unstemmed | Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada |
title_short | Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada |
title_sort | taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (ornithischia: hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late campanian wapiti formation of northwestern alberta, canada |
topic | Evolutionary Studies |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8103918/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33987001 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11290 |
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