The oldest lambeosaurine dinosaur from Europe: Insights into the arrival of Tsintaosaurini

Hollow-crested lambeosaurine hadrosaurids represent one of the latest and most rapid radiations of ornithischian dinosaurs, attaining a nearly global distribution during the Late Cretaceous. Although their presence in Europe is well documented, there are questions about the origin and timing of their arrival in this continent. The analysis of old and newfound lambeosaurine specimens from the Els Nerets locality (eastern Tremp Syncline, northeastern Spain) have shown that the ornithopod dinosaurs from this classic site belong to Lambeosaurinae. Recent chronostratigraphic data places the locality in the lower Maastrichtian, implying that the Els Nerets lambeosaurine is the first occurrence of the clade in Europe. The Els Nerets lambeosaurine exhibits some noticeable pelvic features only shared with the Asian taxon Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus and thus we hypothesize a close taxonomic affinity between the lambeosaurine from Els Nerets and the Eurasian Tsintaosaurini. Members of this tribe would have dispersed into the Ibero-Armorican Domain not later than the early Maastrichtian, coexisting with endemic dinosaurian groups for some time.