Trachodon
Sign in to saveTrachodon (meaning "rough tooth") is a dubious genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur based on teeth from the Campanian-aged (Upper Cretaceous) Judith River Formation of Montana, U.S. It is a historically important genus with a convoluted taxonomy that has been all but abandoned by modern dinosaur paleontologists. Despite being used for decades as the iconic hadrosaurid dinosaur, the material it is based on is composed of teeth from both hadrosaurids and ceratopsids (their teeth have a distinctive double root), and its describer, Joseph Leidy, came to recognize the difference and suggested limiting the
Article
5 sectionsContents
- History and classification
- Species
- Paleobiology
- See also
- References
Trachodon (meaning "rough tooth") is a dubious genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur based on teeth from the Campanian-aged (Upper Cretaceous) Judith River Formation of Montana, U.S. It is a historically important genus with a convoluted taxonomy that has been all but abandoned by modern dinosaur paleontologists. Despite being used for decades as the iconic hadrosaurid dinosaur, the material it is based on is composed of teeth from both hadrosaurids and ceratopsids (their teeth have a distinctive double root), and its describer, Joseph Leidy, came to recognize the difference and suggested limiting the genus to what would now be seen as ceratopsid teeth. Restricted to the hadrosaurid teeth, it may have been a lambeosaurine.
==History and classification== In 1856, Joseph Leidy received fragmentary remains from the Judith River Formation, collected by Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. From these bones, he provided the first names for North American dinosaurs: Deinodon, Palaeoscincus, Trachodon, and Troodon (then spelled Troödon). The type species of Trachodon is T. mirabilis. The generic name is derived from Greek τραχυς, trakhys, "rough", and όδον, odon, "tooth", referring to the granulate inner surface of one of the teeth. The specific name means "marvelous" in Latin.