A new genus and species of non-hadrosaurid hadrosauroid,
Gobihadros mongoliensis
, is described from a virtually complete and undeformed skull and postcranial skeleton, as well as extensive referred material, collected from the Baynshire Formation (Cenomanian-Santonian) of the central and eastern Gobi Desert, Mongolia.
Gobihadros mongoliensis
is the first non-hadrosaurid hadrosauroid from the Late Cretaceous of central Asia known from a complete, articulated skull and skeleton. The material reveals the skeletal anatomy of a proximate sister taxon to Hadrosauridae in remarkable detail.
Gobihadros
is similar to
Bactrosaurus johnsoni
and
Gilmoreosaurus mongoliensis
, but can be distinguished from them in several autapomorphic traits, including the maximum number (three) of functional dentary teeth per tooth position, a premaxillary oral margin with a ‘double-layer morphology’, and a sigmoidal dorsal outline of the ilium with a well-developed, fan-shaped posterior process. All of these characters in
Gobihadros
are inferred to be convergent in Hadrosauridae. Phylogenetic analysis positions
Gobihadros mongoliensis
as a
Bactrosaurus
-grade hadrosauromorph hadrosauroid. Its relationship with Maastrichtian hadrosaurids from Asia (e.g.,
Saurolophus angustirostris
,
Kerberosaurus manakini
,
Wulagasaurus dongi
,
Kundurosaurus nagornyi
) are sufficiently distant to indicate that these latter taxa owe their distribution to migration from North America across Beringia, rather than having a common Asian origin with
Go
.
mongoliensis
.