Help Finding Sources to ID Dinosaur Bones

[Snakehebi]

Good Evening

I'm kind of a newbie to Dinosaur Bone ID, I've been having quite some trouble finding sources for characters to identify a group of dinosaur fossils, they're all post-cranial bones, Two distal half-Femurs one fragmented, One Cervical Vertebra, 5 Caudal Vertebrae, Two metatarsi and what I believe to be a phalanx I suspect they are from Hadrosaurs mainly because of their relative abundace on the formation they're from (Cerro del Pueblo Fm.) the main problem I have is I dont seem to be able to find described characters which I can look for on these bones to help me ID them, I was wondering if anyone could help me by pointing me to some source where I could find these

Thank You

[Troodon]

I'm not familiar with that formation but typically you will not find a single source that has the type of information you are seeking. It's found in many different publications and articles that may not be easily found.

One publication that has a hadrosaur, Latirhinus uitstlani from Cerro del Pueblo Fm is the one listed below, it might be useful since it's full of illustrations of bones. If you cannot obtain it online send me a PM.

Prieto-Márquez, Albert; Serrano Brañas, Claudia Inés (2012). "Latirhinus uitstlani, a 'broad-nosed' saurolophine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) from the late Campanian (Cretaceous) of northern Mexico". Historical Biology 24 (6): 607619. doi:10.1080/08912963.2012.671311

Edit:

Let me add that identifying isolated bones to a species can be a very difficult task. You can try posting images of your specimens and we may be able to help you get to a some family level of ID. Welcome to the forum.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Troodon

[Snakehebi]

Thank you very much for the Info

and yeah, I know I might not get to ID them to species, also I've been reading some texts about Hadrosaurs but the main way used to differentiate subfamilies is by Cranial characters, I was wondering if there were Post-cranial characters to get to that level of ID.

[Troodon]

Most late cretaceous north american Hadrosaurs are identified by cranial features. My guess it would be difficult using post cranial elements but paleontologists familiar with that fauna might be able to shed light on them.

I need to see if the book Hadrosaurs has any comments on your locality. Not at home right now but will check.

Hadrosaurs 2014

Edited by David A. Eberth and David C. Evans

[Ridgehiker]

Thank you very much for the Info

and yeah, I know I might not get to ID them to species, also I've been reading some texts about Hadrosaurs but the main way used to differentiate subfamilies is by Cranial characters, I was wondering if there were Post-cranial characters to get to that level of ID.

Not really. There will be a list of described species found in a formation. Your bones 'may' be one of those. Of course, the list may be far from complete and many of the identifications tentative. We don't know what we 'haven't' found.

I've collected thousands of hadrosaur bones and the only hadrosaur I'm confident identifying from a few skeletal elements is Edmontosaurus...and that's only from a few of the elements like the terminal caudals and the metatarsals. Most bones are not diagnostic to genus and some not even to family. A tooth is more useful but, even there, gets iffy unless you have a few articulated.

It can't be stressed enough that the most important piece of info is where a specimen is found. For example, you may have a specimen that is identified as 'a'.... But then some study is done with that shows that 'a' is not found in that formation...all of this 'a's are really now 'b's or 'c's. We get this reclassification in the rich beds in the Dinosaur Park and Oldman formations. If I identify a specimen to the genus level, I add a note as to 'why' and perhaps some mention of a published reference. This has been especially useful with raptor teeth over the decades. Everything was once Saurornitholestes or Dromaeosaur. Now they can be none of these or a few other genera.

Edited June 4, 2016 by Ridgehiker

[doushantuo]

http://www4.ncsu.edu/~lezanno/Research_files/j.1096-3642.2007.00349.x.pdf

http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/2246/6080/1/N3694.pdf

http://www.gspauldino.com/Largehadrosaurines.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4643044/

Edited June 4, 2016 by doushantuo

[LordTrilobite]

Most late cretaceous north american Hadrosaurs are identified by cranial features. My guess it would be difficult using post cranial elements but paleontologists familiar with that fauna might be able to shed light on them.

I need to see if the book Hadrosaurs has any comments on your locality. Not at home right now but will check.

Hadrosaurs 2014

Edited by David A. Eberth and David C. Evans

I'm still in the process of reading that book. But I think there was some in it about Mexican Hadrosaurs.

Regardless, there's also a lot of other good reference in there. Definitely worth it.

[Troodon]

I'm home LordTrilobite thanks for the reminder. It is a great reference book on Hadrosaurs and relatively current. It does have a chapter on Mexico's Hadrosaurs but does not provide detailed bone images that one can use for identification. The chapter breaks down the finds by State and the Cerro Fm is in the State of Coahuila.

Velafrons coaluilensis at the date of publication was the only described hadrosaurid from that State. Other finds included a Labeosaurine indet., a Saurolophinae indet which in 2012 was described as Latirhinus uitstlani and finally there were poorly preserved Hadrosaurid bones that could not be described any further.. So we have a few species from that locality. The papers on both described species might shed some light on the bones because they belong to two type of hadrosaururs and there are suttle difference in the bones. I mentioned one paper in my earlier post here is the second one.

Gates, Terry A.; Sampson, Scott D.; Delgado de Jesús, Carlos R.; Zanno, Lindsay E.; Eberth, David; Hernandez-Rivera, René; Aguillón Martínez, Martha C.; and Kirkland, James I. (2007). "Velafrons coahuilensis, a new lambeosaurine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Late Campanian Cerro del Pueblo Formation, Coahuila, Mexico". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 27 (4): 917930. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[917:VCANLH]2.0.CO

[LordTrilobite]

Isn't Magnapaulia also present in Mexico? Or was that further north?

In any case. If you suspect you have Hadrosaur bones. I think the first thing you'd need to find out is if they are Lambeosaurine or Saurolophine. The Hadrosaur book Troodon mentioned has a lot of reference that could help with answering that question.

[doushantuo]

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0045712.PDF

this took me ages to download

Edited June 8, 2016 by doushantuo

[doushantuo]

https://peerj.com/articles/1872.pdf

[Troodon]

Isn't Magnapaulia also present in Mexico? Or was that further north?

Yes its present in Mexico but in the northwest, Baha California area and Maastrichtian. Lots of diversity in Hadrosaurs during the Campanian making identification a difficult task.