Gonkoken nanoi, a newly discovered species of duck-billed dinosaur brought to life in an awesome animation, could be a missing link between older and younger hadrosaurs.
Gonkoken Nanoi
The primitive species was unearthed by paleontologists in Chile, Live Science reports. The car-sized dinosaur's discovery could change what is currently known about the history of its family of flat-nosed creatures.
According to the Economic Times India, the G. nanoi lived around 72 million years ago in the far south of present-day Chilean Patagonia. It is part of the Hadrosauridae family, which comprises herbivorous dinosaurs that are typically known as duck-billed dinosaurs due to their flattened snout bones.
Its name, Gonkoken, means similar to a swan or wild duck in the Souther Tehuelches, or Aónikenk, language that prehistoric indigenous inhabitants used in the area where the remains were spotted in the late 1900s.
The G. nanoi likely had a length of 11.5 to 13 feet. It weighed around 1,300 to 2,200 pounds, the researchers explained in a statement. The creature also had teeth that reached up to hundreds in number. These teeth were capable of crushing, grinding, and cutting virtually any material from plants, such as wood.
Remains of the creature were found in a huge bone bed in the Valle del Río de Las Chinas section of the Chilean Patagonia. The pile consists of roughly 50 fossils, which include the remains of at least three individuals who were juveniles and adults.
Bone findings include jaw fragments, teeth, skull bones, vertebrae, ribs, and limb bones. These findings date to the late Cretaceous period.
The researchers explain that the discovery of so many fossils in one single spot suggests that the creature may have been sociable and lived in huge groups.
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Dinosaur Skeleton Recreated
Scientists have used the bones of the G. nanoi to recreate the skeleton of the species. Their novel findings were included in the Science Advances journal, while they relayed in a Spanish video press conference a short clip made by PaleoGDY, an animator, that reveals what the creature could have looked like.
Initially, scientists thought that the G. nanoi belonged to a species that has already been known to have lived during the late Cretaceous period, as hadrosaurs were among the most prevalent groups of dinosaurs in what is now present-day South America. However, their findings revealed that there were vital differences in certain bone shapes, such as those of the teeth and haw, which suggests that the bones belonged to a more primitive hadrosaur species.
The researchers think that this G. nanoi dinosaur serves as an evolutionary link between younger and older hadrosaurs. However, they do not think that the creature was the ancestor of other hadrosaurs across the southern hemisphere. Rather, they think that the species dwelled alongside other counterparts that were more advanced.
They propose that the creature or its ancestral relatives surfaced in the northern hemisphere with other hadrosaurs of primitive origin. These creatures could have then moved south, possibly through a land bridge, before the emergence of more advanced forms across the northern hemisphere.
Live Science adds that their new habitat's conditions could have been more suitable for the G. nanoi compared to their previous homes. Hence, they thrived more in the southern areas, while their primitive relatives in the north passed away.
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