Latirhinus Uitstlani

By Gabe Deitz, Abby Welsh, and Hannah Bealer

How do we know it is a dinosaur?

The word Latirhinus means broad nose in Latin, and the word Uitstlani means southern in the Nahuatl language of Mexico. Latirhinus is characterized and known by its large, arched nasal bones above the snout and larger nostril openings. This dinosaur possessed sturdy hind limbs with tree toes along with smaller and thinner forelimbs with only 4 fingers. He was thumb less.

How do we know it is a dinosaur? (cont.)

It walked on four legs when roaming around and when it needed to accelerate spread, it would run on its two hind legs in an erect stance. This dinosaur has an extremely thick tail that would counterbalance the anterior part of its body. It was an herbivore because it had a few thousand teeth closely packed together to form a grinding surface to chew the vegetables (dental batteries). This was a duck-billed dinosaur.

What kind of Dinosaur is Latirhinus Uitstlani?

As described features above, this dinosaurs features represent a saurolophine hadrosaurid (Ornithopoda). It is from the late cretaceous of northern Mexico. This dinosaur lived 73 million years ago.

How does it relate to other, familiar dinosaurs?

This dinosaur is related to other duck billed dinosaurs such as: Gryposaurus and the Kritosaurus because they are all herbivores and have head crests with arched nasals. The both also walk on their hind legs as well as having thick tails. Here is an example of one that was in The Land Before Time movie series some people may be familiar with:

Where is it found?
IGM 6583 found at ejido (communal land) Presa San Antonio, in the town of Parras de la Fuente, southern Coahuila, Northern Mexico part of the Cerro Del Pueblo formation

Where is it found? (cont.)

How old is it?

can be found by analyzing the Cerro del Pueblo Formation 50% mudstones, 45% sandstones, 4% siltstones sandstones contains various other dinosaurs bones and fossilized wood include footprints for various pterosaurs and hadrosaurs, as well as ceratopsian skeletons by using faunal succession, 72.5 million years old

What was the climate like?

The climate was warmer than it is now, but there was a noticeable cooling trend throughout the period. Ice sheets and glaciers were almost entirely absent except in the high mountains, so even at its coldest the climate was still warmer than it is today.

Habitat
Found on an island in the Western Interior Seaway called Laramidia Stretches from Alaska to Mexico. dominant predator - T-rex That area is rich with dinosaur fossils, so we know it was home to one of the most diverse dinosaur faunas.

Who is researching it?

Discovered by Claudia Ines Serrano Branas Albert Prieto-Marquez(they wrote the original article) being studied at Bayerische Staatssammlung fur Palaontologie und Geologie in Munich

What research questions does the find address?

Researchers did not figure out what kind of dinosaur this was until 2006 when answers started to come together. Evolutionary biologist, Alert Prieto-Marquez questions this dinosaurs large nasal cavities. He said in a Huffington Post article, I had never seen a nasal with such broad contour.

Research concluded about dinosaur based on their study of the specimen:

Because soft tissue isnt preserved, there was no way of knowing the purpose of the dinosaurs enlarged nose. Prieto-Marquez also said that Latirhinus could have an enhanced sense of smell, making it better able to detect potential predators. The large cavity could have also contained some sort of inflatable bladder that could have been used to communicate with other dinosaurs, he also added. Other findings include: big nose, sturdy hind limbs, three toes no thumb, erect stance when running and long tail.

How does it relate to older research?

Backs up older research which predicted various duck-billed dinosaurs living in Northern Mexico

Other Paleontologists?

Terry Gates, a research fellow at Ohio University: "We have known for years that several kinds of duck-billed dinosaurs lived in Mexico during the Late Cretaceous, but diagnostic specimens have been hard to come by. Dr. Prieto-Mrquez is one of the leaders in the field of duck-billed dinosaurs and has a keen eye for detecting differences among species." hopes for size and weight to be determined