Sahaliyania

Sahaliyania Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 68–66 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Lower jaws and teeth
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	†Ornithischia
Clade:	†Neornithischia
Clade:	†Ornithopoda
Family:	†Hadrosauridae
Subfamily:	†Lambeosaurinae
Tribe:	†Lambeosaurini
Genus:	†Sahaliyania Godefroit et al., 2008
Type species
†Sahaliyania elunchunorum Godefroit et al., 2008

Sahaliyania (from "black" in Manchu, a reference to the Amur/Heilongjiang River) is a genus of lambeosaurine hadrosaurid dinosaur (crested duckbilled dinosaur) from the Late Cretaceous of Heilongjiang, China.

Discovery

Restoration

Hip bones

Its remains were found in a bonebed in the Maastrichtian-age Yuliangze Formation, alongside rarer remains of the hadrosaurine hadrosaurid (flat-headed duckbill) Wulagasaurus. Sahaliyania was named by Pascal Godefroit and colleagues in 2008. It is one of several hadrosaurids from the Amur River region named since 2000. The type and only species to date is S. elunchunorum, named in honor of the Elunchun people.^[1]

Sahaliyania is based on GMH W453, a partial skull. Godefroit and colleagues assigned numerous other fossils from the bonebed to their new genus, representing much of the skull, pectoral girdle, upper arm, and pelvis. It can be distinguished from other hadrosaurids by a variety of anatomical details. Godefroit and colleagues performed a phylogenetic analysis that places Sahaliyania as a lambeosaurine of uncertain relationships.^[1] As a hadrosaurid, Sahaliyania would have been herbivorous.^[2]

A 2022 article reassessed Sahaliyania and considered it a junior synonym of Amurosaurus.^[3]

See also

• Timeline of hadrosaur research

References

1. Godefroit, Pascal; Hai Shulin; Yu Tingxiang; Lauters, Pascaline (2008). "New hadrosaurid dinosaurs from the uppermost Cretaceous of north−eastern China" (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 53 (1): 47–74. doi:10.4202/app.2008.0103.
2. Horner, John R.; Weishampel, David B.; Forster, Catherine A (2004). "Hadrosauridae". In Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska, Halszka (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 438–463. ISBN 978-0-520-24209-8.
3. Xing, Hai; Gu, Wei; Hai, Shulin; Yu, Tingxiang; Han, Dong; Zhang, Yuguang; Zhang, Shujun (2022). "Osteological and taxonomic reassessments of Sahaliyania elunchunorum (Dinosauria, Hadrosauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous Yuliangzi Formation, northeast China". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 41 (6): e2085111. doi:10.1080/02724634.2021.2085111. S2CID 250463301.