New duck-billed dinosaur discovered

BILBAO, Spain, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- A new hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, has been discovered in Huesca, Spain, scientists at the University of Basque Country said.

Several species of hadrosaurs inhabited the Iberian Peninsula until about 65.5 million years ago when some sort of catastrophic event caused their extinction, university paleontologist Xavier Pereda-Suberbiola said in a release Friday.

The new hadrosaur, Arenysaurus ardevoli, has a skull with a hollow cranial crest, a prominent frontal dome and post-cranial elements such as vertebrae, girdle and limb bones, Pereda-Suberbiola wrote in the French journal Comptes Rendus Palevol.

Of the 50 locations where hadrosaur remains have been discovered since 1984, almost half have been found in and near Huesca, where the new hadrosaur was discovered. Huesca is noted for fossils pertaining to several species of duck-billed dinosaurs. Some of those hadrosaurs could have migrated from Asia and North America before the continents separated, Pereda-Suberbiola said.