Kelumapusaura
"red earth lizard"
Type species Kelumapusaura machi
- Lived
- 72 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ornithopods, Hadrosauridae
- Found in
- Argentina
- Named by
- Rozadilla et al. 2021
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
70 million years ago
Habitat
The Allen Formation records rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Austroraptor, Aeolosaurus and Bonapartesaurus also lived in the region.
Field notes
About Kelumapusaura
What it was like
Kelumapusaura was a duckbill, a plant eater with a broad beak and grinding teeth. It was a relative of Kritosaurus. Duckbills reached South America from the north late in the Cretaceous.
Its world
It lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, near the end of the Cretaceous, in what is now Argentina. It comes from the Allen Formation, where it shared the land with the long-snouted hunter Austroraptor, the abelisaur Abelisaurus and the titanosaurs Aeolosaurus and Neuquensaurus.
How it was found
Rozadilla and colleagues named Kelumapusaura in 2021. The type species is Kelumapusaura machi. It is known from a bone bed with many animals.
Field gallery
More views of Kelumapusaura
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 Kelumapusaura.
The evidence
The science behind Kelumapusaura
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- Skull and body bones come from several animals, including subadults and adults.
- The upper jaw is unusually low compared with the lower jaw.
- The front of the lower jaw has a long projection with a deep groove at its tip.
Borrowed from relatives
- More complete duckbills such as Edmontosaurus guide the outline of missing parts of the body.
Still unknown
- Its skin texture and color.
- Whether it regularly lived in herds.
- How it cared for its eggs and hatchlings.
Discovery timeline
- 2017Same rocksCruzado-Caballero & Powell
- 2021Named itRozadilla et al.
- 2023Family treeAlarcón-Muñoz et al.
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Kelumapusaura
Same rocks
Described Bonapartesaurus, a duckbill from the same formation, and examined its relationships with northern hadrosaurids.
Bonapartesaurus rionegrensis, a new hadrosaurine dinosaur from South America: implications for phylogenetic and biogeographic relations with North America. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 37: e1289381
Read the paper : Bonapartesaurus rionegrensis, a new hadrosaurine dinosaur from South America: implications for phylogenetic and biogeographic relations with North America (opens in a new tab)Named it
Named a duckbill from skull and body bones of subadults and adults, and linked it with other South American hadrosaurids.
A new hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Late Cretaceous of northern Patagonia and the radiation of South American hadrosaurids. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 19: 1207-1235
Read the paper : A new hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Late Cretaceous of northern Patagonia and the radiation of South American hadrosaurids (opens in a new tab)Family tree
Recovered Kelumapusaura within a South American hadrosaurid branch and showed that Gonkoken belonged to a separate duckbill lineage.
Relict duck-billed dinosaurs survived into the last age of the dinosaurs in subantarctic Chile. Science Advances 9
Read the paper : Relict duck-billed dinosaurs survived into the last age of the dinosaurs in subantarctic Chile (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Hadrosauridae
Sources: Wikidata