Quick Facts
| Intro | Egyptian Vertebrate Paleontologist |
| A.K.A. | Hesham M. Sallam |
| Is | Scientist Paleontologist |
| From | Egypt |
| Field | Biology Science |
| Gender | male |
| Residence | Mansoura, Egypt |
Biography
Hesham Sallam is an Egyptian Associate Professor at Department Of Geology, Mansoura University, Egypt and the founder of Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center. In January 2018, Sallam and his team discovered Mansourasaurus in Mansoura, Egypt.
Discovering Mansourasaurus
Hesham Sallam, together with a team of students discovered a sauropod skeleton in the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt's Western Desert. In 2016, it was reported that over thirty dinosaur specimens had been excavated, among them titanosaurian sauropods.
Based on this skeleton, the type species Mansourasaurus shahinae was named and described in January 2018, by Hesham M. Sallam, Eric Gorscak, Patrick M. O'Connor, Iman A. El-Dawoudi, Sanaa El-Sayed, Sara Saber, Mahmoud A. Kora, Joseph J. W. Sertich, Erik R. Seiffert and Matthew C. Lamanna. The generic name refers to the Mansoura University. The specific name honours Mona Shahin, one of the founders of the Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center.
The Mansourasaurus specimen described in 2018 is its holotype, MUVP 200, discovered in a layer of the Quseir Formation dating from the late Campanian, about seventy-three million years old. It consists of a partial skeleton with skull and lower jaws. It contains a fragment of the skull roof, a part of the lower braincase, the dentaries of the lower jaws, three neck vertebrae, two back vertebrae, eight ribs, the right scapula, the right coracoid, both humeri, a radius, a third metacarpal, three metatarsals, and parts of osteoderms. The skeleton was found on a surface of four by three metres. It was not articulated. The authors concluded that the holotype is a juvenile specimen, because the bones of its shoulder girdle had not yet fused. An ulna, specimen MUVP 201, found at twenty metres distance from the skeleton, was not referred to the species as it seemed somewhat too large for the holotype individual and a general connection to the species could not be proven.
