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First lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Europe: palaeobiogeographical implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1999

M. L. CASANOVAS
Affiliation:
Institut de Paleontologia Dr. M. Crusafont, Escola Industrial 23, 08201 Sabadell, Spain
X. PEREDA SUBERBIOLA
Affiliation:
Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Facultad de Ciencias, Laboratorio de Paleontología, Apartado 644, E-48080 Bilbao and Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de Paléontologie, 8 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
J. V. SANTAFE
Affiliation:
Institut de Paleontologia Dr. M. Crusafont, Escola Industrial 23, 08201 Sabadell, Spain
D. B. WEISHAMPEL
Affiliation:
Department of Cell Biology, The Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA

Abstract

New dinosaur specimens from the uppermost Cretaceous of Spain represent the first record of a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Europe. This discovery, which consists of skull, mandible, and postcranial remains from the Tremp Basin (Lleida Province, Catalonia), is particularly unexpected because lambeosaurines are otherwise well known from western North America and central and eastern Asia. Originally named Pararhabdodon isonensis, a species previously regarded as a basal iguanodontian dinosaur, new material indicates that Pararhabdodon is in fact a primitive member of the lambeosaurine clade. The presence of lambeosaurines on the Iberian Peninsula at the very end of the Cretaceous period is likely due to vicariance rather than dispersal. The distribution of hadrosaurids suggests biogeographic differences across the European archipelago at the end of the Cretaceous.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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