Pronunciation: eel-yee-nah-KAH-gay
Meaning: Duck-mimic of the South
Author/s: Juárez Valieri et al. (2011)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Río Negro, Argentina
Discovery Chart Position: #776
Willinakaqe salitralensis
When Valieri and colleagues coined Willinakaqe in 2010, they assigned to it a partial skeleton (MPHN-Pv 01) from the Allen Formation of La Pampa that was first described in 2000 by González Riga and Silvio Casadío who resisted the urge to christen it, due mainly to its fragmentary nature. If they had taken the plunge, the latter palaeontologists could've bathed in glory, because MPHN-Pv 01 doesn't belong to Willinakaqe at all. Nevertheless, they reclaimed it in 2012 and did what they should've done in the first place, belatedly christening an all new critter Lapampasaurus, which is the first hadrosaurid known from La Pampa. Fortune favours the brave.
Still the first-named hadrosaurid from the Allen Formation but not the part that lies in La Pampa, Willinakaqe is well represented by several specimens of different ages from a single bonebed in the Salitral Moreno locality of Río Negro, and a few scraps from Malvinas Argentinas Partido. It appears to be a kritosaurinin — the saurolophines with duckbills and arched snouts, though its snout isn't as arched as the Kritosaurini type specimen Kritosaurus, or any other kritosaurinin whose snout is known, for that matter.
Unfortunately for Willinakaqe, Penélope Cruzado-Caballero and Rodolfo Coria reckon its immature name-bearing specimen is too fragmentary and badly-weathered to support a strong diognosis, and have dismissed every unique character identified in the original description as invalid. As if that isn't bad enough, differences in tooth count, width between teeth, position and angle of the tooth row, features of the humeri and differing length and width of the metatarsals amongst several of its assigned specimens suggest Willinakaqe may have laid claim to fossils that belong to several different species. One such specimen (MPCA-Pv SM 2) was renamed Bonapartesaurus rionegrensis in 2017.
Still the first-named hadrosaurid from the Allen Formation but not the part that lies in La Pampa, Willinakaqe is well represented by several specimens of different ages from a single bonebed in the Salitral Moreno locality of Río Negro, and a few scraps from Malvinas Argentinas Partido. It appears to be a kritosaurinin — the saurolophines with duckbills and arched snouts, though its snout isn't as arched as the Kritosaurini type specimen Kritosaurus, or any other kritosaurinin whose snout is known, for that matter.
Unfortunately for Willinakaqe, Penélope Cruzado-Caballero and Rodolfo Coria reckon its immature name-bearing specimen is too fragmentary and badly-weathered to support a strong diognosis, and have dismissed every unique character identified in the original description as invalid. As if that isn't bad enough, differences in tooth count, width between teeth, position and angle of the tooth row, features of the humeri and differing length and width of the metatarsals amongst several of its assigned specimens suggest Willinakaqe may have laid claim to fossils that belong to several different species. One such specimen (MPCA-Pv SM 2) was renamed Bonapartesaurus rionegrensis in 2017.
(Duck-mimic of the South, from Salitral Moreno)Etymology
Willinakaqe is derived from the Mapuche words "willi" (South), "iná" (mimic) and "kaqe" (duck).
The species epithet, salitralensis, refers to the Salitral Moreno locality, where the first remains were recovered.
ZooBank registry: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:97E32BCD-3A7B-4C6F-BB07-20B4E10CE886.
Discovery
The first remains of Willinakaqe was discovered at the Salitral Moreno locality in the Allen Formation (MMalargüe Group), 20 km south of the General Roca locality, Río Negro Province, Argentina, by Jaime Emilio Powell in 1984.
The holotype (MPCA-Pv SM 8) is a partial jaw (a right premaxilla).
Referred material includes MPCA-Pv 01 that was renamed Lapampasaurus cholinoi in 2012, while the paratypes include MPCA-Pv 02 which became Bonapartesaurus in 2017.
