In Depth
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.
