''Morelladon'' is an

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 of herbivorous

styracosterna Ankylopollexia is an extinct clade of ornithischian dinosaurs that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. It is a derived clade of iguanodontian ornithopods and contains the subgroup Styracosterna. The name stems from the Greek word ...

ornithopod Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (). They represent one of the most successful groups of herbivorous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous. The most primitive members of the group were bipedal and relatively sm ...

dinosaur. It lived during the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name) is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 143.1 ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, around 130 million years ago.

Discovery

In 2013, teams of the ''

Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia The National Distance Education University (, UNED) is a distance learning and research university founded in 1972 and is the only university run by the government of Spain. The headquarters is located in Madrid, with campuses in all Spanish ...

'' (UNED) and the ''

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid The Autonomous University of Madrid (; UAM), commonly known as la Autónoma, is a Spanish public university located in Madrid, Spain. The university was founded in 1968 by royal decree. UAM is widely respected as one of the most prestigious univ ...

'', at the ''Mas de Sabaté'' (CMP-MS) site of the ''Mas de la Parreta'' quarry at Morella discovered a skeleton of a euornithopod. The fossil was prepared by Juan Miguel Soler, Miguel Ángel Aguilar, Jesús Royo and Manuel Domingo García. In 2015, the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

''Morelladon beltrani'' was named and described by José Miguel Gasulla, Fernando Escaso, Iván Narváez, Francisco Ortega and

José Luis Sanz José Luis Sanz Ruiz (born 21 September 1968) is a Spanish politician. He served as a senator from 2011 to 2023 with a brief interlude in 2019, and as a member of the Parliament of Andalusia from 2000 to 2012. He was mayor of Tomares from 2007 to ...

. The generic name combines a reference to Morella with Greek ὀδών, ''odṓn'', "tooth". The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours Victor Beltrán, the owner of the ''Vega del Moll S.A. Company'' exploiting the quarries, for his cooperation with the scientific research. The

holotype 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 ...

, CMP-MS-03, was found in a layer of the

Arcillas de Morella Formation The Arcillas de Morella Formation is a geological formation in Spain whose strata date back to the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.Weishampel, David B; et ...

traditionally dated to the early

Aptian The Aptian is an age (geology), age in the geologic timescale or a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early or Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), S ...

, but according to recent

palynological Palynology is the study of microorganisms and microscopic fragments of mega-organisms that are composed of acid-resistant organic material and occur in sediments, sedimentary rocks, and even some metasedimentary rocks. Palynomorphs are the mic ...

research perhaps dating from the late

Barremian The Barremian is an age in the geologic timescale (or a chronostratigraphic stage) between 125.77 Ma (million years ago) and 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma (Historically, this stage was placed at 129.4 million to approximately 125 million years ago) It is a ...

. It consists of a partial skeleton lacking the skull. It contains a right dentary tooth, seven dorsal vertebrae, fragments of the neural spines of dorsal vertebrae, two rib pieces, a sacrum, two chevrons, the ilia, incomplete pubes and ischia and a right tibia. ''Morelladon'' was one of eighteen dinosaur taxa from 2015 to be described in open access or free-to-read journals.

Description

''Morelladon'' is a medium-sized euornithopod. Its body length has been estimated at six metres, its weight at two tonnes. The describing authors established some distinguishing traits. These were all

autapomorphies In phylogenetics, an autapomorphy is a distinctive feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given taxon. That is, it is found only in one taxon, but not found in any others or outgroup taxa, not even those most closely related to ...

, unique derived qualities. The longest neural spines reach a height of at least 4.3 times the height of their vertebral bodies. The rear middle back vertebrae have a very high and deep depression between their rear articular processes and the base of the neural spine, 2.6 times higher than that base is long, measured from the front to the rear. The rib of the dorsosacral vertebra is fused with the sacral yoke. With the second and third sacral vertebrae the keel at the underside is limited to the front part of the vertebral body. With the fourth sacral vertebra the keel has a similar position but is low and wide. The facets for the dorsosacral and first sacral ribs are located close to each other near the top edge of the ilium, higher than the facets of the other sacral ribs. The ridge on the inner side of the rear blade of the ilium runs obliquely to behind and above, forming a slightly swollen bone shelf, directed to the inside, on the rear part of the rear blade. The lower end of the ischium has a D-shaped cross-section due to an extension on the outer side.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q21787543 Ankylopollexia Dinosaur genera Barremian dinosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2015 Taxa named by Fernando Novas Dinosaurs of Spain