Describer

Gates, Sampson, Delgado, Zanno, Eberth, Hernandez-Rivera, Aguillón Martínez & Kirkland, 2007

Time

Cretaceous Late Campanian

Classification

Ornithischia Ornithopoda Hadrosauridae Lambeosaurinae

Diet

Herbivore

Fossilsite

Cerro del Pueblo Formation, Coahuila, Mexico

Info

Genus - Skull - Typespecies

Holotype

CPC-59

Velafrons (meaning \\\\\\\"sailed forehead\\\\\\\") is based on a mostly complete juvenile skull with a bony crest on the forehead. Velafrons was most similar to young specimens of Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus, and was found to be a corythosaurin in the phylogenetic analysis performed by Gates and colleagues in their description of the genus.

The skull was large in comparison to skulls from other genera at a similar growth stage, so the crest may have been small in adults or followed a different growth pattern, or it may be that adult Velafrons were also larger than adults of other lambeosaurine genera. Unusually large size is also seen in the Mexican hadrosaurids Kritosaurus sp. and Lambeosaurus laticaudus.