Kerberosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 66 Ma |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Order: | †Ornithischia |
Suborder: | †Ornithopoda |
Family: | †Hadrosauridae |
Subfamily: | †Saurolophinae |
Genus: |
†Kerberosaurus Bolotsky and Godefroit, 2004 |
Species: | †K. manakini |
Binomial name | |
Kerberosaurus manakini Bolotsky & Godefroit, 2004 |
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Synonyms | |
Kundurosaurus? Godefroit et al., 2012 |
Kundurosaurus? Godefroit et al., 2012
Kerberosaurus (meaning "Kerberos lizard") was a genus of saurolophine duckbill dinosaur from the late Maastrichtian-age Upper Cretaceous Tsagayan Formation of Blagoveshchensk, Amur Region, Russia (dated to 66 million years ago). It is based on bonebed material including skull remains indicating that it was related to Saurolophus and Prosaurolophus.
In 1984, Yuri Bolotsky and the Amur Complex Integrated Research Institute discovered a large dinosaur bonebed at Blagoveschensk. Most of the remains were of Amurosaurus (a lambeosaurine hadrosaur), but some came from turtles, crocodilians, theropods, nodosaurids, and a new hadrosaurine. For the hadrosaurine, cranial material (holotype AENM 1/319, braincase, plus others) was distinctive enough to permit the naming of a new genus.
Diagnostic characters included narrow frontals, unique form of the braincase, and a well-demarcated division between the area of bone surrounding the nostrils and the bone outside of it. No reconstruction of the fragmentary partial skull was offered. In their cladistic analysis, the authors found Kerberosaurus to be the sister taxon to Saurolophus and Prosaurolophus.