New dinosaur specimens from the uppermost Cretaceous of Spain represent
the first record
of a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Europe. This discovery, which consists
of skull, mandible, and
postcranial remains from the Tremp Basin (Lleida Province, Catalonia),
is particularly unexpected
because lambeosaurines are otherwise well known from western North America
and central and eastern
Asia. Originally named Pararhabdodon isonensis, a species previously
regarded as a basal iguanodontian
dinosaur, new material indicates that Pararhabdodon is in fact
a primitive member of the
lambeosaurine clade. The presence of lambeosaurines on the Iberian Peninsula
at the very end of the
Cretaceous period is likely due to vicariance rather than dispersal. The
distribution of hadrosaurids
suggests biogeographic differences across the European archipelago at the
end of the Cretaceous.