Penelopognathus (meaning "wild duck jaw") is a genus of dinosaur which lived during the Early Cretaceous. It was an iguanodont ancestral to hadrosaurids, which also contributes to the hypothesis that hadrosauroids originated in Asia.[1] Fossils have been found in the Bayin-Gobi Formation in what is now China. The type species, Penelopognathus weishampeli, named after David Weishampel, was described by Godefroit, Li, and Shang in 2005, based on fragmentary jaw fossils.[1]

Penelopognathus
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, Albian
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Ornithischia
Clade: Neornithischia
Clade: Ornithopoda
Superfamily: Hadrosauroidea
Genus: Penelopognathus
Species:
P. weishampeli
Binomial name
Penelopognathus weishampeli
Godefroit, Li, and Shang, 2005

Its jaw is similar to that of Altirhinus and Probactrosaurus, suggesting that Penelopognathus was related to the two genera.[1] Prieto-Márquez and Carrera Farias (2021) found that Telmatosaurus was the sister taxon to Penelopognathus, which was also found to be closely related to Lophorhothon, as opposed to Tethyshadros.[2] Penelopognathus grew up to around 5 metres (16 ft) long and around 2 metres (6.6 ft) tall when fully grown.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Godefroit, P., Li, H., and Shang, C.Y. (2005). "A new primitive hadrosauroid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Inner Mongolia (P.R. China)". Comptes Rendus Palevol 4(8):697-705. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2005.07.004.
  2. ^ Prieto-Márquez, Albert; Carrera Farias, Miguel (2021). "A new late-surviving early diverging Ibero-Armorican duck-billed dinosaur and the role of the Late Cretaceous European Archipelago in hadrosauroid biogeography". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 66. doi:10.4202/app.00821.2020.