STL Science Center

STL Science Center

29 March 2011

Another version of evidence and an article.

Edmontosaurs is mentioned in a number of articles. I found one good one. First, though, I thought I'd keep up the Anatotitan/Edmontosaurs debate. In the book I'm reading, The Dinosauria, there is a page in the Hadrosaur section that has a skull from E. saskatchewanensis and A. copei one above the other, respectively. It makes for a much better comparison than my previous graphic. However, the species shown before was E. annectens, not E. saskatchewanensis. This may cause alarm or a call that they are not the same, but the skull of E. annectens is very much like E. saskatchewanensis.

The extreme difference in general shape top to bottom at the rear of the skull, the angle of the nasal-frontal slope to the beak, the shape of palatal bone's top which juts into the nares on the Anatotitan, shapes of orbital and supratemporal fenestra, downward curvature on the lateral sides of the premaxilla, and the overall length of the skull make me feel confident in my earlier statement that Anatotitan is not the same animal as Edmontosaurus though, as I said before, is probably very, very closely related. I am aware that an argument for top to bottom compression of the Anatotian skull could very well make a case for the differences noted above, however, I do not believe that this is a likely scenario.

The article I found and mentioned before is about creating a 3-D model of an Edmontosaurus skull to enable a mastication experiment to test theories on how Hadrosaurs chewed. It is filled with great illustrations and is a very interesting and intriguing read, even if it is a little technical. Skim it at least, it's worth it!

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