Adynomosaurus arcanus

Adynomosaurus is a genus of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of what is now Catalonia, Spain. First discovered in 2012, it was named in 2019 with the type and only species being Adynomosaurus arcanus. It is only known from scant material, but is distinguished from other hadrosaurs by its weakly developed shoulder blade which would have had underdeveloped musculature, which lends it its scientific name, partially from the Greek word for "weak". Its exact relationships with other hadrosaurs remain unresolved, with it not consistently being recovered as a relative of any other specific genera, though some studies have allied it with Tsintaosaurini or even found it outside of Hadrosauridae. It would have lived as part of a diverse coastal estuary ecosystem, made up of meandering rivers and mud flats. The discovery of Adynomosaurus adds to the very incomplete fossil record of hadrosaurid dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous of Europe, and it fits into a picture of major ecological turnover that was occurring during the Maastrichtian stage in the region.

Adynomosaurus arcanus

Levi Martinez-Reza · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AdynomosaurusPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

Time the record covers

At most 6.2 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 66 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence72–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences72.7 Mya65.5 Mya

1 occurrence of Adynomosaurus arcanus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

1 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Conques — 42.16°N, 1.03°E

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The named rock units Adynomosaurus arcanus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Adynomosaurus arcanus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Adynomosaurus arcanus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

No other named taxon is catalogued from that site.

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Adynomosaurus arcanus, and this reads all of them.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Adynomosaurus arcanus

Credit
Levi Martinez-Reza
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Adynomosaurus arcanus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAdynomosaurus through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Prieto-Márquez et al. 2019