Willinakaqe

Willinakaqe Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous, Campanian–Maastrichtian PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Clade:	†Ornithopoda
Family:	†Hadrosauridae
Subfamily:	†Saurolophinae
Tribe:	†Kritosaurini
Genus:	†Willinakaqe Juárez Valieri et al., 2010
Species
†W. salitralensis Juárez Valieri et al., 2010 (type)

Willinakaqe is an extinct genus of saurolophine hadrosaurid dinosaur which lived during the late Cretaceous (late Campanian-early Maastrichtian stage) of the Río Negro Province of southern Argentina.

Willinakaqe is known from several disarticulated specimens, among them juvenile and adult individuals found at the Salitral Moreno site of the Lower Member of the Allen Formation. The holotype is MPCA-Pv SM 8, a right premaxilla. A second site in the Malvinas Argentinas Partido has rendered additional specimens. Together the material represents the majority of the skeleton.^[1]

Willinakaqe was first named by Rubén D. Juárez Valieri, José A. Haro, Lucas E. Fiorelli and Jorge O. Calvo in 2010 and the type species is Willinakaqe salitralensis. The generic name means "Southern duck-mimic", in the Mapuche language (willi, "south", iná, "mimic" and kaqe, "duck"). The specific name refers to the Salitral.^[1]

The largest individuals found were about 9 metres (30 ft) long. Willinakaqe had long spines on its pelvis and tail base.^[1]

Phylogeny

The describers assigned Willinakaqe to the Saurolophidae within the Hadrosauroidea.^[1]

In 2010 cladistic analyses by Prieto-Márquez confirmed that the only two hadrosaurid taxa known from South America, Willinakaqe and Secernosaurus, form a clade within the Saurolophinae.^[2] Prieto-Márquez & Salinas 2010, Prieto-Márquez, 2010 and Juárez Valieri e.a. considered "Kritosaurus" australis to be identical to Secernosaurus.^[1][2]

Cladogram after Prieto-Márquez, 2010:^[2]

References