Duck-billed dinosaur

June 19, 2023

Scientists in Chile have discovered a new species of duck-billed dinosaur that lived 72 million years ago in the far south of Chile.
Gonkoken nanoi is the name of this new dinosaur species from an ancestral lineage of hadrosaurs, which would have migrated to the Southern Hemisphere long before more advanced forms, and it is believed that they may have even reached Antarctica.
Gonkoken nanoi, the fifth species of dinosaur discovered in Chile, was actually found in 2013, kicking off a decade-long investigation.
The name Gonkoken comes from the Tehuelche language, the first inhabitants of the region, and means “similar to a wild duck or a swan.”
It is a species of herbivorous dinosaur previously unknown in the southern hemisphere.
These were slender-looking dinosaurs, which could easily adopt a bipedal and quadrupedal posture to reach the vegetation at height and ground level.
This type of duck-billed dinosaur was common in North America, Asia and Europe during the Cretaceous period.