Dino card No. 1128 of 2,027

Malefica

Say it: mal-EF-ih-kah

Name means: “witch or sorceress”1 2

Ate: PlantsDuck-billsLate Cretaceous

Malefica was a duck-billed dinosaur that lived in what is now Texas, USA, about 83 to 72 million years ago. It is known from just one partial upper jaw bone, but scientists could tell it was a new kind of hadrosaur. Its name means 'witch' because it was found in Bruja Canyon, and 'bruja' is Spanish for witch.3 1 2

Lived

84 to 72 million years ago5

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA1 2

Food

Plants3

Length

5 m4

estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 5 dogs nose to tailas long as 28 bananas end to end

How big was Malefica compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Malefica is known from just one partial left maxilla, which is the upper jaw bone. Even though it is fragmentary, scientists could identify it as a new species because the maxilla has many unique features.1 2

Malefica lived during the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous, about 83 to 72 million years ago.3

Malefica was a non-saurolophid hadrosaurid, meaning it was an early offshoot of the duck-billed dinosaur family that did not belong to the main group of hadrosaurs with solid or hollow crests.1

The fossil of Malefica was originally thought to belong to the dinosaur Kritosaurus, but later study showed it was a different animal.2

Malefica was named in 2023 by paleontologists Albert Prieto-Márquez and Jonathan R. Wagner.3 1

The specific name deckerti honors Frank Deckert, who found the specimen.2

AI-made picture of Malefica — An AI-made picture of how Malefica might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Malefica

?How big was Malefica?

Nobody knows for sure because only a partial upper jaw bone has been found. Scientists cannot estimate its full size from just that bone.2 5

?Is Malefica a dinosaur?

Yes, Malefica is a dinosaur. It is a hadrosaurid, which is a type of duck-billed dinosaur.2 5

?When did Malefica live?

Malefica lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, about 83 to 72 million years ago.2 5

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Malefica
Named by: Prieto-Márquez and Wagner 20235
Group: Duck-bills
Family / clade: Hadrosauridae5
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia > Hadrosauridae5
Age of the rocks: 84 to 72 million years (Campanian)5
Rock formations: Aguja5
Countries: USA5
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database5
Discovery: The only known fossil of Malefica, a partial left maxilla, was found in Bruja Canyon in Big Bend National Park, Texas. It was first thought to be from the dinosaur Kritosaurus in 2002, but in 2023 scientists Albert Prieto-Márquez and Jonathan R. Wagner named it as a new genus and species, Malefica deckerti.1 2
Still debated: Because only a single jaw bone is known, scientists are not sure what the rest of Malefica's body looked like or exactly how big it was.1

Where the facts come from

A new ‘duck-billed’ dinosaur (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) from the upper Campanian of Texas points to a greater diversity of early hadrosaurid offshoots (sciencedirect.com)
Malefica (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
New Species of Duck-Billed Dinosaur Identified in Texas | Sci.News (sci.news)
Malefica in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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