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''Banji'' is an
''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.
extinct
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of oviraptorid dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...
that lived approximately 66 million years ago
Million years ago, abbreviated as Mya, Myr (megayear) or Ma (megaannum), is a unit of time equal to (i.e. years), or approximately 31.6 teraseconds.
Usage
Myr is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used w ...
during the later part of the Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...
Period in what is now China. It was a small, lightly built, ground-dwelling, bipedal
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an animal moves by means of its two rear (or lower) limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' ...
carnivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they ar ...
, that was an estimated long, as a juvenile.
Discovery and naming
Theholotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...
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'' (), named from the Chinese for "striped crest dragon". It was first described by Xu Xing and Feng-Lu Han in 2010.
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.
Distinguishing anatomical features
According to Xu et al. (2013), ''Banji'' can be distinguished based on the following characteristics: the crest is formed by the nasal bones and the premaxillae; the crest has a step-wise caudal end and bears two longitudinal grooves and numerous oblique striations on its lateral surfaces; the presence of a caudally located, extremely elongate, external naris near the orbit; the dorsal surface of the palatal ramus of the pterygoid has a deep fossa; several longitudinal grooves are present along the caudal portion of the dorsal margin of the dentary; several tubercles are present along the lateral shelf at the dorsal margin of the surangular. 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.See also
* Timeline of oviraptorosaur researchReferences
External links
* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q133253 Oviraptoridae Dinosaur genera Maastrichtian dinosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2010 Taxa named by Xu Xing Dinosaurs of China