(Picture by Matti Aumala)
    Paramegahadrinae is an extinct group of North American hadrosaurs that appeared in the middle Oligocene. They were first thought to have been the ancestors of megahadrines, but certain details of their anatomy, most importantly the shape of the head and the shortness of the forelimbs have lead paleontologists to believe they were actually a primitive evolutionary offshoot of Hadrosauroidae. It seems that while megahadrines eventually became grazers of the prairies, paramegahadrines remained in the marshlands and riversides where their common ancestors had evolved. It is still unclear what events exactly lead into their demise.
    Megabeluasaurus was the largest paramegahadrine species, even though it never surpassed the elephantine hmungos in size. The first Megabeluasaurus remains found consisted of a nearly intact skull but very little postcranial material. Based on the enormous size of the skull, the animal was first reconstructed as an enormous hmungo-like grazer. Later finds revealed that the skull of Megabeluasaurus was actually very large in proportion to the rest of its body. The dinosaur seems to have been a dweller of the wetlands whose diet consisted mostly of aquatic plants very much like its cousin, the modern sludger.
(Text by Matti Aumala)
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