Lophorhothon
| Lophorhothon | |
|---|---|
| |
| Skeletal elements | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Neornithischia |
| Clade: | †Ornithopoda |
| Clade: | †Hadrosauromorpha |
| Genus: | †Lophorhothon Langston, 1960 |
| Type species | |
| †Lophorhothon atopus Langston, 1960
| |
Lophorhothon is a
hadrosauroid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Alabama and North Carolina. It was the first genus of dinosaur discovered in Alabama, in the United States
.
Discovery and naming
Remains of a small, poorly known perhaps
Eotrachodon orientalis. The name Lophorhothon means "crested nose" (Greek lophos meaning 'crested' and rhothon meaning 'nose'). The type species is Lophorhothon atopus. The specific name
is derived from Greek atopos, "uncommon" or "strange".
The specimen which Langston designated as the holotype was discovered by Rainier Zangerl, Bill Turnbull and Charles Barber on a Field Museum expedition in 1946 and was given catalogue number FMNH P 27383. It consists of less than one half of the skull, a number of
vertebrae, and significant portions of the fore- and hindlimbs. Preserved cranial material includes a partial quadrate, left maxilla, teeth, jugal, lacrimal, nasal (with the namesake crest), postorbital, frontal, prefrontal, parietal, squamosal, and paroccipital process and a portion of the predentary bone. The specimen was likely washed out to sea by a river, where it eventually sank and was buried in the silty carbonate sediments of the Mississippi embayment
.
In 2021, a more complete specimen was unearthed in Alabama.[2]
Classification
Since the publication of Langston's description of Lophorhothon a number of workers have questioned the validity of this
iguanodont, an idea that has failed to find widespread acceptance. More recent workers (Horner, Weishampel, and Forster, 2004) have classified Lophorhothon as a basal hadrosaurine and a sister taxon to all other hadrosaurines. An analysis published in 2010 indicated it was a basal member of the Hadrosauroidea.[3]
In 2021, new material from Alabama was unearthed not too far from where the original holotype was unearthed. This find cemented its status as a valid genus of hadrosauromorph.[4]
See also
References
- ^ Table 20.1," in Weishampel, et al. (2004). Page 442.
- S2CID 234293555. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
- ^ A. Prieto-Marquez and G. C. Salinas, 2010, "A re-evaluation of Secernosaurus koerneri and Kritosaurus australis (Dinosauria, Hadrosauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina", Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30(3): 813–837
- S2CID 234293555. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
Sources
- Horner, J. R., Weishampel, D. B., and Forster, C. A. 2004. Chapter Twenty: Hadrosauridae. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.
- Lamb, J. P. 1998. Lophorothon, an iguanodontian, not a hadrosaur. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 18 (3 Abstracts): 59A.
- Langston, W. 1960. The vertebrate fauna of the Selma Formation of Alabama, part VI: the dinosaurs. Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs 3(5): 315–359.
- Schwimmer, D. R. 1997. Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in eastern USA: a taphonomic and biogeographic model of occurrences, p. 203–211. In D. L. Wolberg, E. Stump, and G. D. Rosenberg (eds.), Dinofest International. The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
- Thurmond, J. T. and Jones, D. E. 1981. Fossil vertebrates of Alabama. University of Alabama Press.