Velafrons (meaning "sailed forehead") is a genus of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Mexico. It is known from a mostly complete skull and partial skeleton of a juvenile individual, with a bony crest on the forehead. Its fossils were found in the late Campanian-age Cerro del Pueblo Formation (about 72 million years old[1]), near Rincon Colorado, Coahuila, Mexico. The type specimen is CPC-59, and the type species is V. coahuilensis.[2]
| Velafrons Temporal range: Campanian
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| Reconstructed skeleton, Museo del Desierto, Coahuila, México. | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Neornithischia |
| Clade: | †Ornithopoda |
| Family: | †Hadrosauridae |
| Subfamily: | †Lambeosaurinae |
| Tribe: | †Lambeosaurini |
| Genus: | †Velafrons Gates et al., 2007 |
| Type species | |
| †Velafrons coahuilensis Gates et al., 2007
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Description
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Velafrons was most similar to young specimens of Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus, and was found to be a corythosaurin in the phylogenetic analysis performed by Gates and colleagues in their description of the genus. The skull was large in comparison to skulls from other genera at a similar growth stage, so the crest may have been small in adults or followed a different growth pattern, or it may be that adult Velafrons were also larger than adults of other lambeosaurine genera. Unusually large size is also seen in the Mexican hadrosaurids Kritosaurus sp. and Magnapaulia laticaudus.[2] As a hadrosaurid, Velafrons would have been a herbivore. The animal is known from several disarticulated remains, those being certain cervical vertebrae and a disarticulated skull. [2][3]
See also
editReferences
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- ^ Loewen, M.A., Sampson, S.D., Lund, E.K., Farke, A.A., Aguillón-Martínez, M.C., de Leon, C.A., Rodríguez-de la Rosa, R.A., Getty, M.A., Eberth, D.A., 2010, "Horned Dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae) from the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Cerro del Pueblo Formation, Coahuila, Mexico", In: Michael J. Ryan, Brenda J. Chinnery-Allgeier, and David A. Eberth (eds), New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium, Indiana University Press, 656 pp.
- ^ a b c Gates, Terry A.; Sampson, Scott D.; Delgado de Jesús, Carlos R.; Zanno, Lindsay E.; Eberth, David; Hernandez-Rivera, René; Aguillón Martínez, Martha C.; Kirkland, James I. (2007). "Velafrons coahuilensis, a new lambeosaurine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Late Campanian Cerro del Pueblo Formation, Coahuila, Mexico". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 27 (4): 917–930. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[917:VCANLH]2.0.CO;2.
- ^ Horner, John R.; Weishampel, David B.; Forster, Catherine A (2004). "Hadrosauridae". In Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska, Halszka (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 438–463. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
