#ornithopods

[noddytheornithopod]

just heard about Haolong and holy shit, a hadrosauroid iguanadontian with filamentous structures, similar to the ones in kulindadromeus (not the fuzz, the spinier looking filaments it also had)... feathers or similar to feathers in friggin hadrosauroids is wild to imagine

[onlyscarcelyscaly]

From February, a couple Paleoart Valentine's Day cards I made for some of my coworkers, featuring Makhaira, Amargasaurus, Tylocephale, Anchiornis, and Jeholornis, in various physical media.

More detail in the individual image descriptions.

[plasmagruntcalvin]

Haolong, the spiky dragon

[makairodonx]

Dinovember 2024 Day 2: Iguanodon bernissartensis

[randomanimaloftheday]

Day 357#: Morelladon beltrani

Today's animal of the day is Morelladon beltrani!

Image credit: Carlos de Miguel Chaves

Not to be confused with the fictional Morellatops from ARK Survival Evolved (which is supposed to be a hybrid between this dinosaur, a ceratopsid, and a camel), this species of ornithopod dinosaur lived during the Early Cretaceous period, around 130 million years ago, in what is now Spain. It was first unearthed in 2013 by two teams of paleontologists working in a quarry near the ancient city of Morella, and as such, it was given the name Morelladon (Morrella Tooth) when it was later described in 2015.

Image credit: cisiopurple on DeviantArt

While this dinosaur is only known from partial remains, it is estimated to have been around 19 ft long and weighed about 2 tons. Luckily, the partial specimen found in Morella had several preserved vertebrae, which showed that Morelladon had tall neural spines running down its back. These spines likely supported a sail or hump, similar to that of Ouranosaurus (another Early Cretaceous ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now Africa).

Image credit: tnilab-ekneb121 on DeviantArt

The exact purpose of this sail/hump is currently unknown, though there are some theories. If it was a hump, it could have been used to store excess fat for times when food was scarce, similar to modern-day camels. It may have also been used for display and could have been brightly colored. Another possibility is that it could help Morelladons differentiate members of its own species from other closely related dinosaurs. It's possible that the sail/hump was used for all three of these purposes, but until more fossil material is found, all of these are just theories. Though I think it's safe to say that it 100% didn't use its hump to store water like the Morellatops do in ARK.

[knuppitalism-with-ue]

Are there any theories as to why we don’t find big Ornithopods in deposits like Candeleros or the Kem Kem? We have their footprints and body fossils of other large dinosaurs from those places.

Ahhh, good question. I haven't looked that much into this but to my knowledge there isn't really an answer for this.

There could be several reasons, the easiest is that we just haven't found them yet, which is more likely than you think. Another is taphonomy. Maybe something about these ornithopods made them less likely to preserve.

It is also possible that these animals were simply rare in these environments and only occasionally visited.

Maybe it was all of these combined...

Really hard to say. When we finally get a ornithopod from Kem Kem we might learn more.

[falinksdunkleosteus]

Have some ornithischians

[antiqueanimals]

An... interesting theory about Iguanodon in Animal Ghosts. Edited by Claudia Clow. Illustrated by Walt Disney Productions. 1971.

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