''Banji'' is an
extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...
of
oviraptorid dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
that lived approximately 66
million years ago
The abbreviation Myr, "million years", is a unit of a quantity of (i.e. ) years, or 31.556926 teraseconds.
Usage
Myr (million years) is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used with Mya (million years ago). ...
during the later part of the
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
Period in what is now China. It was a small, lightly built, ground-dwelling,
bipedal carnivore, that was an estimated long, as a juvenile.
Discovery and naming
The
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
specimen, IVPP V 16896, consists of a single nearly complete skull and lower jaw. It was donated to the Chinese
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP; ) of China is a research institution and collections repository for fossils, including many dinosaur and pterosaur specimens (many from the Yixian Formation). As its name suggest ...
by an amateur collector who recovered the fossil near the city of
Ganzhou
Ganzhou (), alternately romanized as Kanchow, is a prefecture-level city in the south of Jiangxi province, China, bordering Fujian to the east, Guangdong to the south, and Hunan to the west. Its administrative seat is at Zhanggong District.
Hist ...
, in Jiangxi Province. Examination of the rock encasing the skull shows it is probably from the Red Beds of the
Nanxiong Formation, which date to the
Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary
The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary, formerly known as the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary, is a geological signature, usually a thin band of rock containing much more iridium than other bands. The K–Pg boundary marks the end of ...
about 66 million years ago. It contains only one known species, ''Banji long'' (), named from the
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
for "striped crest dragon". It was first described by
Xu Xing and Feng-Lu Han in 2010.
Description
''Banji'' possessed a tall, crested skull like some other oviraptorids. Uniquely, the sides of the crest are adorned with a series of vertical striations, as well as grooves on the top of the lower jaw. ''Banji'' also differs from other oviraptorids in having an unusually long nasal opening that followed the curve of the crest nearly to the eye socket.
Distinguishing anatomical features
According to Xu et al. (2013), ''Banji'' can be distinguished based on the following characteristics: the crest is formed by the nasal bones and the premaxillae; the crest has a step-wise caudal end and bears two longitudinal grooves and numerous oblique striations on its lateral surfaces; the presence of a caudally located, extremely elongate, external naris near the orbit; the dorsal surface of the palatal ramus of the pterygoid has a deep fossa; several longitudinal grooves are present along the caudal portion of the dorsal margin of the dentary; several tubercles are present along the lateral shelf at the dorsal margin of the surangular.
In 2024, Andrea Cau considered it likely that ''Banji'' represents an immature individual of the contemporary ''
Corythoraptor
''Corythoraptor'' () is a genus of oviraptorid dinosaur from the late Maastrichtian Nanxiong Formation of South China. It contains one species, ''C. jacobsi'', known from a single well-preserved skeleton, and named after paleontologist Louis L ...
'', making it a
senior synonym of that taxon. His reasoning related to shared unique characteristics of the skull, with the proposed diagnosis distinguishing the taxa being based on
ontogenetic
Ontogeny (also ontogenesis) is the origination and development of an organism (both physical and psychological, e.g., moral development), usually from the time of fertilization of the egg to adult. The term can also be used to refer to the st ...
ally variable characters.
See also
*
Timeline of oviraptorosaur research
References
External links
*
*
{{Taxonbar, from=Q133253
Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia
Oviraptorids
Fossil taxa described in 2010
Taxa named by Xu Xing