Biology:Banji
Banji is an extinct genus of oviraptorid dinosaur that lived approximately 66 million years ago during the later part of the Cretaceous Period in what is now China. It was a small, lightly built, ground-dwelling, bipedal carnivore, that was an estimated 65 cm (2.1 ft) long, as a juvenile.
Discovery and naming
The holotype specimen, IVPP V 16896, consists of a single nearly complete skull and lower jaw. It was donated to the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology by an amateur collector who recovered the fossil near the city of Ganzhou, in Jiangxi Province. Examination of the rock encasing the skull shows it is probably from the Red Beds of the Nanxiong Formation, which date to the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary about 66 million years ago. It contains only one known species, Banji long (斑嵴 龍), named from the Chinese for "striped crest dragon". It was first described by Xu Xing and Feng-Lu Han in 2010.[1]
Description
Banji possessed a tall, crested skull like some other oviraptorids. Uniquely, the sides of the crest are adorned with a series of vertical striations, as well as grooves on the top of the lower jaw. Banji also differs from other oviraptorids in having an unusually long nasal opening that followed the curve of the crest nearly to the eye socket.[1]
Distinguishing anatomical features
In 2024, Andrea Cau considered it likely that Banji represents an immature individual of the contemporary Corythoraptor, making it a senior synonym of that taxon. His reasoning related to shared unique characteristics of the skull, with the proposed diagnosis distinguishing the taxa being based on ontogenetically variable characters.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Xu, X.; Han, F.-L. (2010). "A new oviraptorid dinosaur (Theropoda: Oviraptorosauria) from the Upper Cretaceous of China". Vertebrata PalAsiatica 48 (1): 11–18. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271967561.
- ↑ Cau, Andrea (2024). "A Unified Framework for Predatory Dinosaur Macroevolution". Bollettino della Società Paleontologica Italiana 63 (1): 1-19. doi:10.4435/BSPI.2024.08. https://www.paleoitalia.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Cau_2024_BSPI_ONLINE.pdf. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
External links
Data related to Banji at Wikispecies
Template:Oviraptorosauria Wikidata ☰ Q133253 entry
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