First lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Europe: palaeobiogeographical implications

Abstract

New dinosaur specimens from the uppermost Cretaceous of Spain represent the first record of a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Europe. This discovery, which consists of skull, mandible, and postcranial remains from the Tremp Basin (Lleida Province, Catalonia), is particularly unexpected because lambeosaurines are otherwise well known from western North America and central and eastern Asia. Originally named Pararhabdodon isonensis, a species previously regarded as a basal iguanodontian dinosaur, new material indicates that Pararhabdodon is in fact a primitive member of the lambeosaurine clade. The presence of lambeosaurines on the Iberian Peninsula at the very end of the Cretaceous period is likely due to vicariance rather than dispersal. The distribution of hadrosaurids suggests biogeographic differences across the European archipelago at the end of the Cretaceous.