Paleontologists have announced the discovery of new genera and species of platypusosaur (platypus) dinosaurs based on skeletal remains found in new Mexico, USA.
This new dinosaur, known as the "Inca Onatobusurus", roamed the earth about 80 million years ago (late Cretaceous).
Part of its skeleton, the Inca Onatoburon, including part of the skull, was found at a site in the Menife Formation in San Juan County, New Mexico. The Menife Formation is one of the most promising frontiers for exploring the early evolution of major Cretaceous dinosaur groups in the Upper Cretaceous Midia of the La Incas, a land mass that includes Mexico, the western United States, western Canada, and Alaska. The Menife Formation dates back about 84 million to 78 million years ago, predates the most productive Upper Cretaceous dinosaur fossil units in western North America, such as the Cortland Formation in New Mexico, the Keparowitz Formation in Utah, and the Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta.
It is a member of the genus Diplodocus, a group of duck-billed dragons that inhabited western North America during the Cretaceous Campanian era (84-72 million years ago). Features of the skull top and brain shell suggest that the new platypus was a member of Anchovosaurus, one of several subclasses of the 'solid-crowned' duck-billed dragon family. This new species is closely related to two other species, Short-tailed Yellow Dragon and Canadian Short-tailed Yellow Dragon, and may be somewhere in between.
The Inca Onatobrunn was the first short-horned dragon from New Mexico and the southernmost of its kind. It was also the first crowned brachycephalicosaurus found in southern Ramidia.
The research team's paper was published online, April 2, 2021 in the journal PeerJ.