Naashoibitosaurus

''Naashoibitosaurus'' (from Navajo —"creek lizard") is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived about 73 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous, and was found in the Kirtland Formation of the San Juan Basin in New Mexico, United States. Only a partial skeleton has been found to date. It was first described as a specimen of ''Kritosaurus'' by Jack Horner, and has been intertwined with ''Kritosaurus'' since its description.

Description

''Naashoibitosaurus'', based as it is on a single partial skeleton ( NMMNH P-16106), is not well known in terms of anatomy. Its skull, the most thoroughly described portion, has a low nasal crest that peaks in front of the eyes, but does not strongly arch as in ''Gryposaurus''.

Classification

''Naashoibitosaurus'' is a saurolophine hadrosaurid, a "flat-headed or solid-crested duckbill". It is closest to the solid-crested forms like ''Saurolophus''. If it is the same as ''Kritosaurus'', ''Kritosaurus'' would be used because it is the older name, but its position vis-a-vis other duckbills would be the same.

History

Befitting a genus with a confusing taxonomic history, the name of this genus is based on an error. David Gillette and David Thomas collected the type and only known specimen from what was thought to be the Naashoibito Member of the Kirtland Formation, the youngest member of the Kirtland; this was commemorated in the name. Instead, it came from the older, late Campanian-age De-na-zin Member. Horner described the skull in 1992 as that of an immature ''Kritosaurus'', using it as evidence that ''Gryposaurus'' was different from ''Kritosaurus''. At the same time, Hunt and Lucas were describing the postcrania as belonging to '' Edmontosaurus saskatchewanensis''. When the disconnect became apparent, Hunt and Lucas gave the specimen its own generic name, because the skull did not agree with an edmontosaur, and they considered ''Kritosaurus'' indeterminate and thus not usable.

Their assessment was challenged in 2000 by Thomas Williamson, who found the morphological differences between it and ''Kritosaurus'' to be due to the skulls in question being from individuals of different ages. Unlike Hunt and Lucas, he considered the type skull of ''Kritosaurus'' to be diagnostic and thus could compare it to ''Naashoibitosaurus''. He returned to Horner's argument, noting as Horner had that the nasal crest in other hadrosaurines like ''Prosaurolophus'' moves back on the skull during growth. He also pointed out that the specimen's provenance was incorrect; instead of being from younger rocks than ''Kritosaurus'', it is from rocks of about the same age. The next major review, in the second edition of ''The Dinosauria'', again separated the two. The absence of the beak and lower jaw in the partial skull of ''Naashoibitosaurus'' makes comparison even more difficult.

A 2014 study agreed with previous authors that ''Naashoibitosaurus'' is similar to ''Kritosaurus'', but found it to be a distinct species.

Paleobiology

As a hadrosaurid, ''Naashoibitosaurus'' would have been a large bipedal/ quadrupedal herbivore, eating plants with a sophisticated skull that permitted a grinding motion analogous to chewing. Its teeth were continually replacing and packed into dental batteries that contained hundreds of teeth, only a relative handful of which were in use at any time. Plant material would have been cropped by its broad beak, and held in the jaws by a cheek-like organ. Feeding would have been from the ground up to ~4 meters (13 ft) above. If it was a separate genus, how it would have partitioned resources with the similar ''Kritosaurus'' is unknown.

See also

* Timeline of hadrosaur research

References

External links

Status of fossil speciesPDF file on hadrosaurs

{{Taxonbar, from=Q744334

Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America
Saurolophines
Taxa named by Spencer G. Lucas
Fossil taxa described in 1993
Paleontology in New Mexico
Campanian genus first appearances
Campanian genus extinctions
Ornithischian genera