Bactrosaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous,
~96 mya | |
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Skeleton on display at the Central Museum of Mongolian Dinosaurs, Ulaanbaatar | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Order: | †Ornithischia |
Suborder: | †Ornithopoda |
Clade: | †Hadrosauromorpha |
Genus: | †Bactrosaurus Gilmore, 1933 |
Type species | |
†Bactrosaurus johnsoni Gilmore, 1933
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Species | |
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Bactrosaurus was a hadrosaur from the Upper Cretaceous about 70 milion years ago. This plant-eating dinosaur. was found in the Gobi Desert of China. It was about 6 metres (20 feet) long and 2 metres (6.6 feet) high when standing on all fours. It weighed 1.1 to 1.5 tonnes (2,400 to 3,300 pounds).
Research showed that this genus and its near relatives were unusually prone to cancer. Among more than 10,000 specimens x-rayed, tumors were only found in these Cretaceous hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs).[1] The reason for this is not known.