Magnapaulia
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Magnapaulia Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 73.6–73 Ma |
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| Left premaxilla of the holotype | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | †Ornithopoda |
| Family: | †Hadrosauridae |
| Tribe: | †Lambeosaurini |
| Genus: |
†Magnapaulia Prieto-Márquez et al., 2012 |
| Type species | |
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†Magnapaulia laticaudus (Morris, 1981) |
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| Synonyms | |
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Lambeosaurus laticaudus Morris, 1981 |
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Lambeosaurus laticaudus Morris, 1981
Magnapaulia is a genus of herbivorous lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaurs known from the Latest Cretaceous Baja California, of northwestern Mexico. It contains a single species, Magnapaulia laticaudus.Magnapaulia was first described in 1981 as a possible species of Lambeosaurus by William J. Morris, and was given its own genus in 2012 by Prieto-Márquez and colleagues.
Between 1968 and 1974, a team of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County headed by geologist William J. Morris excavated giant lambeosaurine remains from a site near El Rosario in Baja California. Morris named them Lambeosaurus laticaudus in 1981, based on type specimen LACM 17715, a partial skeleton with partial skull. Morris added a question mark to the front of the generic name to indicate its provisional nature: because no complete crest had been found for his species, and without it a definitive assignment could not be made. From what was known of the skull, he considered it to be most like Lambeosaurus. The specific name is derived from the Latin latus, "broad", and cauda, "tail". Morris interpreted this species as water-bound, due to features like its size, its tall and narrow tail (interpreted as a swimming adaptation), and weak hip articulations, as well as a healed broken thigh bone that he thought would have been too much of a handicap for a terrestrial animal to have survived long enough to heal. Between 1981 and 2012, other authors accepted it as a potential species of Lambeosaurus, suggested it could instead be a species of Hypacrosaurus, or questioned its validity.
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