Malefica

MEANING: Sorceress

PERIOD: Late Cretaceous

CONTINENT: North America

Like other hadrosaurs, Malefica was herbivorous, processing plant matter with its broad beak and battery of teeth. It grew to around 6 m long, and weighed about 1 t. The discovery of Malefica helped to understand the distribution of hadrosaurs in Cretaceous North America, as well as evolutionary lineages between basal hadrosaurs and the more derived saurolophids.

Abstract from paper: We describe a previously unrecognized genus and species of basally-branching hadrosaurid dinosaur, Malefica deckerti, from the middle- to upper Campanian upper shale member of the Aguja Formation in Big Bend National Park, southwestern Texas, USA. This taxon is represented by a partial left maxilla. The hadrosaurid maxilla is particularly useful in differentiating species, and, despite the incomplete nature of the material, this new taxon is diagnosable by several autapomorphies and a unique combination of character states. Phylogenetic analysis places M. deckerti within Hadrosauridae but outside Saurolophidae, the major hadrosaurid clade consisting of the solid-crested or unadorned Saurolophinae and the hollow-crested Lambeosaurinae. When considered with the other known non-saurolophid hadrosaurids, this species adds to the growing evidence a hitherto unrecognized diversity of early hadrosaurid offshoots spanning the upper Santonian through the Maastrichtian and widespread throughout Eurasia and North America.

Malefica is from the Late Cretaceous. The Cretaceous is the third and final geological period of the Mesozoic Era, with the Late Cretaceous making up roughly the second half of it, lasting from about 100 to 66 million years ago. It was a time of significant evolutionary change, with dinosaurs reaching their greatest diversity before the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.

The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate, though the Late Cretaceous experienced a global cooling trend, caused by falling levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The continents were nearing their present positions, but high sea levels flooded low-lying regions, turning Europe into an archipelago, and forming the Western Interior Seaway in North America. These seas were home to a variety of marine reptiles, including mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, while pterosaurs and birds shared the skies.

On land, dinosaurs continued to thrive and diversify during the Late Cretaceous, producing many of the most well-known goups, including tyrannosaurs, hadrosaurs, and pachycephalosaurs. Established Cretaceous dinosaur clades like the ceratopsians, ankylosaurs, and dromaeosaurs continued to flourish. Sauropod species consisted almost exclusively of titanosaurs, which seemed to be confined to the Southern Hemisphere for much of the Late Cretaceous. Flowering plants and grasses diversified and spread, becoming the dominant flora similar to what we see today.

The Cretaceous (along with the Mesozoic) ended with the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction event, a large mass extinction in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and large marine reptiles, died out. This event, likely triggered by an asteroid impact, is marked by the abrupt K-Pg boundary, a distinct geologic layer separating the Mesozoic and Cenozoic Eras. In its aftermath, mammals and avian dinosaurs rapidly diversified, becoming the dominant land animals of the Cenozoic Era.

Malefica is a hadrosaur. Hadrosauroidea is the family of ornithopod dinosaurs that includes all species more derived than the Iguanodontidae, culminating in the highly specialized hadrosaurids. While the derived hardosaurs flourished in the Late Cretaceous, hadrosauroidea also includes a wide range of earlier, more generalized herbivores. These basal hadrosauroids retained many primitive traits, such as narrower snouts, less complex dental batteries, and a more variable mix of bipedal and quadrupedal locomotion.

Basal hadrosauroids were widespread, particularly during the Early and mid-Cretaceous, and are known from Asia, Europe, and North America. They typically inhabited floodplains and forested environments, where their well-developed chewing mechanisms and flexible limbs allowed them to browse on a wide range of plant material. These dinosaurs were often mid-sized and lightly built, with adaptations suggesting they could move efficiently on two legs but may have dropped to all fours while feeding. Hadrosauroids represent a crucial stage in ornithopod evolution, combining efficient herbivory, social behavior, and locomotor versatility in a lineage that would go on to become one of the most successful herbivorous groups of the Cretaceous.