Iyuku
Name: Iyuku
(Hatchling).
Phonetic: (Eye-yu-ku).
Named By: Catherine A. Forster, William J. de
Klerk, Karen E. Poole, Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, Eric M.
Roberts & Callum F. Ross - 2022.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ornithopoda, Iguanodontia.
Species: I. raathi (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Uncertain due to varying degrees of
preservation and juvenile nature of known remains.
Known locations: South Africa - Kirkwood
Formation.
Time period: Early Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial remains of many
juvenile individuals.
In
the closing years of the twentieth century a bone bed containing the
remains of at least twenty-seven juvenile dinosaurs was excavated in
South Africa. The 2022 study describing the genus (Forster et
al.) considers these juveniles to represent everything from
hatchlings to subadults, Possibly located at a nesting site.
The
2022 description of Iyuku considered Iyuku
to
represent an
iguanodontian dinosaur, but was loathed to elaborate further on the
basis that these dinosaurs were juveniles. However one of the
palaeontologists involved in this description, Karen Poole, had
earlier in 2015 wrote a dissertation regarding the juveniles as
dryosaurid ornithopods, a position that she repeated in a separate
paper published later in 2022.
Further reading
- Phylogeny and Biogeography of Iguanodontian Dinosaurs, with
Implications from Ontogeny and an Examination of the Function of the
Fused Carpal-Digit I Complex (PhD thesis). - The George
Washington University. pp. 1–207. - Karen E. Poole -
2015.
- Iyuku raathi, a new iguanodontian dinosaur
from the Early
Cretaceous Kirkwood Formation, South Africa. - The Anatomical
Record - Catherine A. Forster, William J. de Klerk, Karen
E. Poole, Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan, Eric M. Roberts &
Callum F. Ross - 2022.
- Placing juvenile specimens in phylogenies: An ontogenetically
sensitive phylogenetic assessment of a new genus of iguanodontian
dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Kirkwood Formation, South Africa.
- The Anatomical Record. - Karen Poole - 2022.
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