Aquilarhinus
"eagle nose"
Type species Aquilarhinus palimentus
- Lived
- 84 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ornithopods, Hadrosauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Prieto-Márquez et al. 2020
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Habitat
The Aguja Formation records a coastal landscape in Texas. Other dinosaurs from the formation include Agujaceratops, Kritosaurus and Edmontonia.
Field notes
About Aquilarhinus
What it was like
Aquilarhinus was a duck-billed plant eater with an arched nose, a little like an eagle's beak. Its lower jaw was shaped like a shovel at the front, which suggests it scooped up plants in a different way from its relatives.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Texas, in the United States. Its bones come from the Aguja Formation, where it shared the land with the horned Agujaceratops, the duck-billed Kritosaurus and the armored Edmontonia.
How it was found
Prieto-Márquez and colleagues named Aquilarhinus in 2020, from a single find. The bones had been found decades earlier.
Field gallery
More views of Aquilarhinus
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Aquilarhinus.
The evidence
The science behind Aquilarhinus
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- The nasal bones form a low, arched crest above the snout.
- The front ends of the lower jaws are long and bend upward.
Borrowed from relatives
- Duckbills such as Gryposaurus provide comparisons for restoring the body around its unusual head.
Still unknown
- The exact outline of the horny covering on its beak.
- Whether it used its shovel-shaped mouth to scoop up plants growing in water.
- Its color and skin pattern.
Discovery timeline
- 2013Close relativePrieto-Márquez
- 2019Same rocksLehman et al.
- 2020Named itPrieto-Márquez, Wagner & Lehman
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Aquilarhinus
Close relative
Detailed the bones and relationships of Kritosaurus, providing comparisons with the duckbills that Aquilarhinus superficially resembles.
Skeletal morphology ofKritosaurus navajovius(Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of the North American south-west, with an evaluation of the phylogenetic systematics and biogeography of Kritosaurini. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 12: 133-175
Read the paper : Skeletal morphology ofKritosaurus navajovius(Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of the North American south-west, with an evaluation of the phylogenetic systematics and biogeography of Kritosaurini (opens in a new tab)Same rocks
Studied the rocks containing Aquilarhinus and described their fish, turtles, crocodile relatives and other dinosaurs.
Stratigraphy and vertebrate fauna of the lower shale member of the Aguja Formation (lower Campanian) in West Texas. Cretaceous Research 99: 291-314
Read the paper : Stratigraphy and vertebrate fauna of the lower shale member of the Aguja Formation (lower Campanian) in West Texas (opens in a new tab)Named it
Described an arched nasal crest and upturned jaw tips, proposing that a shovel-shaped beak helped scoop up plants growing in water.
An unusual ‘shovel-billed’ dinosaur with trophic specializations from the early Campanian of Trans-Pecos Texas, and the ancestral hadrosaurian crest. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 18: 461-498
No link available
Close relatives
Other members of Hadrosauridae
Sources: Wikidata