Pronunciation:
Meaning: Foreigner
Author/s: Longrich et al. (2020)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Khouribga Province, Morocco
Discovery Chart Position: #1032
Ajnabia odysseus
(Foreign Seafarer)Etymology
Ajnabia is an Arabic word that means "foreigner", because it arrived in Africa from a foreign land. By the Late Cretaceous, continental drift had long split the world's continents and Africa was isolated by deep oceans. As there is no evidence of land bridges joining Africa to Europe (where the family of lambeosaurines most closely related to Ajnabia evolved), scientists suspect that Ajnabia must have crossed hundreds of kilometers of open water — rafting on debris, floating, or swimming — to colonise the continent. The species epithet, odysseus, refers to the Greek seafarer.
Discovery
The remains of Ajnabia were discovered at the Office Chérifien des Phosphates mines at Sidi Chennane, upper Couche III, Khouribga Province, Morocco. The same locality has yielded the fossils of two other duck-billed dinosaurs, Minqaria bata and Taleta taleta, but they all differ in features of the fossils that are comparable, particularly the teeth.
The holotype (MHNM.KHG.222) is a partial left upper jaw with teeth, fragments of right upper jaw, and a partial left lower jaw.
Preparators
Scott Moore-Fay.
