Pronunciation: OHR-gus TEE-no LO-fus
Meaning: Augustyn crest
Author/s: Prieto-Márquez et al. (2014)
Synonyms: Saurolophus morrisi
First Discovery: California, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #868
Augustynolophus morrisi
Although represented by just two partial and poorly-preserved Moreno Formation skeletons (LACM/CIT 2852 and LACM/CIT 2760 from Fresno and Benito counties, found in 1939 and 1940, respectively), the fossils that would ultimately be named Augustynolophus have courted plenty of palaeontologists down the years.
Chester Stock announced both specimens in 1941, long before William Morris assigned them to a Saurolophus sp.
in May 1973, along with a third (UCMP 32944), which was heralded as the first dinosaur to be found on the American West Coast in 1936. Then Phil Bell and David Evans argued that what would become the holotype skull (LACM/CIT 2852) was no different to that of Edmontosaurus in 2010, and at the same time, joined every other hadrosaur expert since the 1940s in brushing UCMP 32944 under the rug.
Albert Prieto-Marquez and Jonathan Wagner went to great lengths in 2013 to prove that Morris was right in the first place and named Saurolophus morrisi in his honour. Then, the following year, they enlisted Phil Bell and Luis Chiappe, fully cleaned "LACM/CIT 2760", and coined Augustynolophus, based mainly on a previously hidden snout bone that may have been part of a head crest.
(Morris' Augustyn crest)Etymology
Augustynolophus is derived from "Augustyn" (for the Augustyn family who have been generous in their financial support of Californian palaeontological research for many years) and the Greek "lophos" (crest). The species epithet, morrisi, honors William J. Morris (1923–2000), in recognition of his substantial contributions to our understanding of the hadrosaurid dinosaurs of the Pacific coast and Western Interior of North America.
Discovery
The holotype of Augustynolophus (LACM/CIT 2852;
a partial skull and skeleton, including vertebrae from the back, neck and tail, a partial right shoulder blade, and various bones from the lower arms, hands and feet) was discovered in the Marca Member of the Moreno Formation, in the Panoche-Tumey Hills of Fresno County, central California, USA, by Chester Stock in 1939. Stock also discovered
a referred specimen (LACM/CIT 2760; a partial skull and skeleton, including a piece of left shoulder blade, two virtually complete arms, fragments of both thighs, a partial shin, and various fragments from the hands and feet) in the Moreno Formation of Benito County in 1940, which is around 30% smaller than the holotype.
When Morris initially assigned the above fossils to Saurolophus in 1973, he also added a third specimen (UCMP 32944), discovered near Pattison, California, by Allen Bennison in 1936 which made it the first recorded dinosaur from America's West Coast. The latter, consisting of over 500 fragments of bone including twenty-seven tail vertebrae, parts of the foot and hindlimbs, was only briefly mentioned as a possible "...member of the Hadrosauridae, a 'duck-billed' or Trachodont-like form" in 1936 by Hesse and Welles who hoped it could be "pieced" together to determine its affinities. Unfortunately, it never was, and it's barely had a mention in the literature since.
