Ajnabia

Ajnabia (meaning "stranger" or "foreigner") is a genus of lambeosaurine hadrosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Morocco. It is the first definitive hadrosaur from Africa and is thought to be related to European hadrosaurs like Adynomosaurus and Pararhabdodon. The discovery of Ajnabia came as a surprise to the paleontologists who found it because Africa was isolated by water from the rest of the world during the Cretaceous, such that hadrosaurs were assumed to have been unable to reach the continent.

==Discovery and naming== thumb|left|Reconstructed skull with known material in white Ajnabia was recovered from the Late Maastrichtian strata of the phosphate mines at Sidi Chennane, in Khouribga Province, Morocco. Recovered elements include most of the left maxilla and part of the right, and a fragment of the right dentary. The name Ajnabia derives from the Arabic أجنبي (ajnabi), meaning "strange" or "foreign", referring to the animal as part of a dinosaur lineage that immigrated to Africa from elsewhere. The type and only species is A. odysseus, referring to the Greek hero and legendary sea voyager Odysseus.