Bactrosaurus

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Bactrosaurus
Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous,
~96 mya
Skeleton on display at the Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs, Ulaanbaatar
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Ornithopoda
Clade: Hadrosauromorpha
Genus: Bactrosaurus
Gilmore, 1933
Type species
Bactrosaurus johnsoni
Gilmore, 1933
Species
  • B. kysylkumensis? (Riabinin, 1931 [originally Cionodon])
  • B. johnsoni Gilmore, 1933

Bactrosaurus was a hadrosaur from the Upper Cretaceous about 70 milion years ago. This plant-eating dinosaur. was found in the Gobi Desert of China. It was about 6 metres (20 feet) long and 2 metres (6.6 feet) high when standing on all fours. It weighed 1.1 to 1.5 tonnes (2,400 to 3,300 pounds).

Research showed that this genus and its near relatives were unusually prone to cancer. Among more than 10,000 specimens x-rayed, tumors were only found in these Cretaceous hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs).[1] The reason for this is not known.

References[change | change source]

  1. Rothschild B.M. et al 2003. Epidemiologic study of tumors in dinosaurs". Naturwissenschaften 90 (11): 495–500. [1]