cranial growth and variation in edmontosaurs (dinosauria hadrosauridae) implications for latest cretaceous megaherbivore diversity in north america颅增长和变化edmontosaurs(恐龙hadrosauridae)在北美最新白垩纪megaherbivore多样性的影响.pdfVIP

Cranial Growth and Variation in Edmontosaurs (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae): Implications for Latest Cretaceous Megaherbivore Diversity in North America ´ 1 2 Nicolas E. Campione *, David C. Evans 1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2 Department of Palaeobiology, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Abstract The well-sampled Late Cretaceous fossil record of North America remains the only high-resolution dataset for evaluating patterns of dinosaur diversity leading up to the terminal Cretaceous extinction event. Hadrosaurine hadrosaurids (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) closely related to Edmontosaurus are among the most common megaherbivores in latest Campanian and Maastrichtian deposits of western North America. However, interpretations of edmontosaur species richness and biostratigraphy have been in constant flux for almost three decades, although the clade is generally thought to have undergone a radiation in the late Maastrichtian. We address the issue of edmontosaur diversity for the first time using rigorous morphometric analyses of virtually all known complete edmontosaur skulls. Results suggest only two valid species, Edmontosaurus regalis from the late Campanian, and E. annectens from the late Maastrichtian, with previously named taxa, including the controversial Anatotitan copei, erected on hypothesized transitional morphologies associated with ontogenetic size increase and allometric growth. A revision of North American hadrosaurid taxa suggests a decrease in both hadrosaurid diversity and disparity from the early to late Maastrichtian, a pattern likely also present in ceratopsid