Priconodon
Priconodon
Extinct genus of dinosaurs
| Priconodon | |
|---|---|
| Priconodon tooth in multiple views | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | †Ornithischia |
| Clade: | †Thyreophora |
| Clade: | †Ankylosauria |
| Family: | †Nodosauridae |
| Genus: | †Priconodon |
| Species: | †P. crassus |
| Binomial name | |
| †Priconodon crassus Marsh, 1888 | |
Priconodon (meaning "saw cone tooth"[1]) is an extinct genus of dinosaur (perhaps nodosaurid), known from its large teeth. Its remains have been found in the Aptian-Albian age Lower Cretaceous Arundel Formation of Muirkirk, Prince George's County, Maryland, USA and the Potomac Group, also located in Maryland.
O. C. Marsh named the genus for USNM 2135, a large worn tooth from what was then called the Potomac Formation. As ankylosaurians were by and large unknown at the time, he compared it to Diracodon (=Stegosaurus) teeth.[2] It was not identified as an ankylosaurian until Walter Coombs assigned it to Nodosauridae in 1978.[3]
In 1998 Kenneth Carpenter and James Kirkland, in a review of North American Lower Cretaceous ankylosaurs, considered it tentatively valid as an unusually large nodosaurid, larger than all those described before.[4] Carpenter (2001) retained it as a valid nodosaurid, but did not employ it in his phylogenetic analysis.[5] Vickaryous et al. (2004), in a review of armored dinosaurs, considered it to be dubious without comment.[6] West and Tibert, however, followed this with a preliminary account of a morphometric study that found it to be a unique genus.[7]
Carpenter and Kirkland (1998) listed 12 additional teeth from the same area as the holotype tooth, and tentatively added a robust tibia (USNM 9154) to the genus. They found the lack of armor found in the Arundel to be peculiar, but noted that fossils are rare in that formation anyway.[4]
As a nodosaurid, Priconodon would have been a slow, armored, quadrupedal herbivore.[6] It would have been a large nodosaurid, but since only teeth are definitely known for the genus, size estimation has not been done.
- Marsh, O.C. (1888). Notice of a new genus of Sauropoda and other new dinosaurs from the Potomac Formation. American Journal of Science 135:89-94.
- Coombs, Jr., W.P. (1978). The families of the ornithischian dinosaur order Ankylosauria. Palaeontology 21(1):143-170.
- Carpenter, K., and Kirkland, J.I. (1998). Review of Lower and middle Cretaceous ankylosaurs from North America. In: Lucas, S.G., Kirkland, J.I., and Estep, J.W. (eds.). Lower and Middle Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 14:249-270.
- Carpenter, K. (2001). Phylogenetic analysis of the Ankylosauria. In: Carpenter, K. (ed.). The Armored Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press:Bloomington 455-483. ISBN 0-253-33964-2
- Vickaryous, M.K., Maryańska, T., and Weishampel, D.B., (2004). Ankylosauria. In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria (second edition). University of California Press:Berkeley 363-392. ISBN 0-520-24209-2