Sahaliyania

Sahaliyania
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Superorder: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Family: Hadrosauridae
Subfamily: Lambeosaurinae
Genus: Sahaliyania
Godefroit et al., 2008
Species
  • S. elunchunorum Godefroit et al., 2008 (type)

Sahaliyania (from "black" in Manchu, a reference to the Amur/Heilongjiang River) is a genus of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur (crested duckbilled dinosaur) from the Late Cretaceous of Heilongjiang, China. Its remains were found in a bonebed in the Maastrichtian-age Yuliangze Formation, alongside rarer remains of the hadrosaurine hadrosaurid (flat-headed duckbill) Wulagasaurus. Sahaliyania was named by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues in 2008. It is one of several hadrosaurids from the Amur River region named since 2000. The type and only species to date is S. elunchunorum, named in honor of the Elunchun people.[1]

Sahaliyania is based on GMH W453, a partial skull. Godefroit and colleagues assigned numerous other fossils from the bonebed to their new genus, representing much of the skull, pectoral girdle, upper arm, and pelvis. It can be distinguished from other hadrosaurids by a variety of anatomical details. Godefroit and colleagues performed a phylogenetic analysis that places Sahaliyania as a lambeosaurine of uncertain relationships.[1] As a hadrosaurid, Sahaliyania would have been an herbivore.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Godefroit, Pascal; Hai Shulin; Yu Tingxiang; and Lauters, Pascaline (2008). "New hadrosaurid dinosaurs from the uppermost Cretaceous of north−eastern China" (pdf). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 53 (1): 47–74. doi:10.4202/app.2008.0103. http://www.app.pan.pl/acta53/app53-047.pdf. 
  2. ^ Horner, John R.; Weishampel, David B.; and Forster, Catherine A (2004). "Hadrosauridae". In Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; and Osmólska, Halszka (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 438–463. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.