Ajnabia, the first African hadrosaur

[Halichoeres]

A new arenysaurin (Hadrosauridae: Lambeosaurinae) from Morocco represents the first record of the group in Africa, and might be evidence that they crossed narrow seas to reach the southern continent from Laurasia and its successors. Appropriately, the authors name it Ajnabia odysseus (ajnabi is Arabic for "foreigner," and Odysseus is a character in Greek mythology who famously traveled the Mediterranean).

The holotype is part of a maxilla and part of a dentary, belonging to a relatively small animal:


Paywall, but I have a pdf if anyone wants it: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104678

[Loon]

That's pretty cool. I didn't know hadrosaurs were unknown in Africa prior to this.

[Faelrin]

Ah too bad it is so fragmentary, but nonetheless still a fascinating discovery.

[HD-man]

Pronunciation?

[Shonisaurus]

So with that discovery I think that in almost all the continents this species (the hadrosaurids), prospered except Antarctica and Australia (correct me in case you are wrong). Every day discoveries are made about the most interesting dinosaurs and animals of prehistory and that involve connecting new ends in regards to the infinity of unsolved enigmas about the past of life on Earth.

[Libraraptor]

@Halichoeres , you constantly deliver interesting facts and news! Thank you for your efforts; often this forum has become my primal source for palaeontology news.

[Dynomikegojira]

So with that discovery I think that in almost all the continents this species (the hadrosaurids), prospered except Antarctica and Australia (correct me in case you are wrong). Every day discoveries are made about the most interesting dinosaurs and animals of prehistory and that involve connecting new ends in regards to the infinity of unsolved enigmas about the past of life on Earth.

I remember reading about an hadrosaur tooth being found in Antarctica but considering how sucessful hadrosaurs I'm not surprised that they had a global distribution. I'm intrigued abot this find because it shows the throughout the Cretaceous the has been an exchange between Europe and North Africa so potentially we could very well have African Rhabdodonts, dromeosaurs, majungasaurines, and nodosaurids waiting to be discovered.

[Halichoeres]

@Halichoeres , you constantly deliver interesting facts and news! Thank you for your efforts; often this forum has become my primal source for palaeontology news.

I'm glad people are getting some use out of it!

Pronunciation?

H @HD-man The Arabic word is أجنبي which sounds like 'adʒnabi: or roughly ADJ-nabee, so I guess I would pronounce it like ADJ-nabia.

[HD-man]

@Halichoeres How do you pronounce ADJ? Also, are you saying the 2nd part is pronounced nah-bee or nah-bee-ah?

[Halichoeres]

H @HD-man  I pronounce it to rhyme with hajj, if that helps? The a in 'adʒnabi: (IPA pronunciation) is closer to the a in Spanish than to either of the a's in "bad" or "father" in most American dialects. But it's pretty similar to the a in "father" as pronounced by someone in rural Wisconsin. On reflection, because the last letter in the source word is ya, it's probably better to say something like ADJ-nah-byah for the genus name. Maybe someone who actually speaks Arabic instead of just learned the alphabet once can help?