Hadrosauria

Malefica is a hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Texas in the United States. Like other hadrosaurs, Malefica was herbivorous, processing plant matter with their broad beaks and battery of teeth in the back of the mouth. It could grow to around 6 m in length, and weighed about 1 t. The discovery of Malefica helped to understand the distribution of hadrosaurs in Cretaceous North America, as well as evolutionary lineages between basal hadrosaurs and the more derived saurolophids.

A life restoration of the Hadrosaur Aquilarhinus palimentus.

Plesiolophus is a lambeosaurine hadrosaur known from the same locality, but an earlier time period than Parasaurolophus. Though it is nearly impossible to know conclusively, Plesiolophus cannot be ruled out as a direct ancestor. Like Parasaurolophus, Plesiolophus would have had a distinct crest protruding backward from its skull.

Historical life restoration of “Hadrosaurus mirabilis” (i.e. Edmontosaurus annectens aka Anatosaurus copei) by a lake. 120 Reconstitution historique d’un « Hadrosaurus mirabilis » (c’est-à-dire Edmontosaurus annectens alias Anatoasaurus copei) au bord d’un lac.

Probactrosaurus hecho por Deibvort

Probactrosaurus hecho por Deibvort

Malefica is a hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Texas in the United States. Like other hadrosaurs, Malefica was herbivorous, processing plant matter with their broad beaks and battery of teeth in the back of the mouth. It could grow to around 6 m in length, and weighed about 1 t. The discovery of Malefica helped to understand the distribution of hadrosaurs in Cretaceous North America, as well as evolutionary lineages between basal hadrosaurs and the more derived saurolophids.

A life restoration of the Hadrosaur Aquilarhinus palimentus.

Figure 6. Hadrosaurs of North America, exemplied by the selection of skulls of valid nominal genera. The grey shadows on the skulls represent the reconstructed parts. Highlighted names indicate the unique genera for each region

Pectoral girdles and forelimbs of dinosaurs in left lateral view, depicting resting scapular and forelimb orientations in different dinosaurian groups as recommended according to the results of this study. In each case, solid horizontal line is parallel to long axis of sacrum. A. theropods without semilunate carpals (Dilophosaurus wetherilli, UCMP 37302). B. theropods with semilunate carpals other than Caudipteryx (Velociraptor mongoliensis, after reference [60]). C. Caudipteryx (C. sp., after reference [8]). D. ceratopsids (Styracosaurus albertensis, NMC 344). E. basal sauropodomorphs (Plateosaurus engelhardti, AMNH 6810). F. non-hadrosaurian ornithopods (Thescelosaurus neglectus, reference [62]). G. hadrosaurids (Parasaurolophus walkeri, after reference [48]). Angle labels: B = scapular orientation relative to long axis of sacrum. E = elbow angle. S = shoulder angle. W = wrist angle. See Materials and Methods section for descriptions of angles.