a heterodontosaurid ornithopod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of England.
Pronunciation: eh-KY-no-don
Meaning: Prickly tooth
Author/s: Owen (
1861)
Synonyms: See
below
First Discovery: Dorset, England
Discovery Chart Position: #21
Echinodon becklesii
(Beckle's Prickly Tooth)Etymology
Echinodon is derived from the Greek "ekhinos" (hedgehog) and "odon" (tooth), referring to the "prickly" serrations on the edges of the teeth.
The
species epithet,
becklesii, honours collector Samuel Husbands Beckles.
Sauraechinodon (Owen, 1861)
Sauraechmodon (Falconer, 1861)
Saurechinodon (Romer, 1956)
Discovery
The first remains of
Echinodon were discovered in the Lulworth Formation of the Purbeck Limestone Group (aka "The Purbeck Beds"), possibly in the "Dirt Bed" aka "The Mammal Pit", high up a cliff in Durdlestone Bay near Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England, by Samuel Beckles. Solid evidence is sadly lacking, but if they were indeed found in "The Mammal Pit", they were found in 1857, which is when Beckles excavated that particular site. They were initially identified as the property of a type of lacertilian (lizard).
As Owen didn't nominate a
holotype (a single specimen that defines the features of an organism) from the original syntypes (a series of specimens with no holotype selected), NHMUK 48209—48210 (a partial snout that split into 2 slabs, during or shortly after collection) was later selected as the lectotype (a specimen from the original syntypes to play the role of a holotype).
The rest of the original syntypes (isolated jaw bones: NHMUK 48211—48215b) became paralectotypes (the specimens that remain after a lectotype has been selected).
Referred material includes two jaw fragments (NHMUK 48229 and NHMUK 40723) from the same area, and isolated teeth from Lovell's quarry (DORCM GS 1164-5, 1167, 1171) and Sunnydown farm (DORCM GS 1194, 1212-6, 1222-3).
A partial left lower jaw bone (NHMUK 48381) from the "Middle Purbecks" of Durlston Bay, recently rediscovered by Ryoko Matsumoto in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London, where it had been labelled as an indeterminate crocodilian, was also referred to
Echinodon.
In 1981, Galton removed "granicones" (found on the same slab as a jaw and initially assigned to
Nuthetes destructor by Owen in 1879) from Stegosauria where they had been referred by Delair in 1959, and transferred them to
Echinodon, because
Scutellosaurus from the Kayenta Formation of Arizona has them and he considered them both to be "fabrosaurids". In 2002, Barrett correctly identified them as leg armour from a prehistoric turtle.
Many specimens from the Brushy Basin member of Colorado's Morrison Formation at Fruita were described as "indeterminate fabrosaur remains" in 1984 by George Callison who changed his mind by 1987 and assigned them to
Echinodon as
Echinodon sp.
Richard Butler and colleagues named them
Fruitadens haagarorum in 2010.
• Owen R (1861) "
Monograph on the Fossil Reptilia of the Wealden and Purbeck Formations. Part V. Order Lacertilia".
Palaeontographical Society: 31–39.
• Owen R (1861) "
Palaeontology: A Systematic Summary of Extinct Animals and their Geological Relations. Second Edition".
[states Echinodon means "spine tooth"]
• Falconer H (1861) "
Note on the synonymy of the fossil genus Echinodon of Professor Owen".
Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 8(46): 341. DOI: 10.1080/00222936108697425.
• Owen R (1874) "
Monograph of the fossil Reptilia of the Wealden and Purbeck
formations. Supplement V. Dinosauria (Iguanodon)".
Palaeontographical Society
Monographs, 27(124): 1-18.
• Delair JB (1959) "The Mesozoic reptiles of Dorset. Part 2".
Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 80: 52–90.
• Galton PM (June, 1978) "Fabrosauridae, the basal family of ornithischian dinosaurs (Reptilia: Ornithopoda)".
Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 52(1–2): 138–159. DOI: 10.1007/BF03006735.
• Galton PM (1981) "A juvenile stegosaurian dinosaur,“
Astrodon pusillus,” from the Upper Jurassic of Portugal, with comments on Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous biogeography".
Journal of Verterbrate Paleontology, 1(3-4): 245-256. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.1981.10011899.
• Sereno PC (1997) "The origin and evolution of dinosaurs".
Annual Reviews of Earth and
Planetary Sciences, 25: 435–489.
• Norman DB and Barrett PM (2002) "Ornithischian dinosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian) of England". Page 161–189 in Milner and Batten (eds.) "
Life and environments in Purbeck times".
Special Papers in Palaeontology, 68. The Palaeontological Association, London.
• Barrett PM, Clarke JB, Brinkman DB, Chapman SD and Ensom PC (2002) "Morphology, histology and identification of the "granicones" from the Purbeck Limestone Formation (Lower Cretaceous: Berriasian) of Dorset, southern England".
Cretaceous Research, 23: 279-295.
• Galton PM (2002) "New material of ornithischian (?heterodontosaurid) dinosaur
Echinodon (Early Cretaceous, southern England) from the Late Jurassic of Fruita near Grand Junction, Colorado, USA".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 22: 55A-56A.
• Salisbury SW (2002) "Crocodilians from the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian) Purbeck Limestone Group of Dorset, southern England". Page 121–144 in Milner and Batten (eds.). "
Life and environments in Purbeck times".
• Foster J (2007) "
Jurassic West: Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and their World".
• Galton PM (2007) "Teeth of ornithischian dinosaurs (mostly Ornithopoda) from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of the western United States". In Carpenter (ed.) "
Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod
Dinosaurs".
• Barrett PM and Maidment SCR (2011) "Dinosaurs of Dorset: Part III, the ornithischian dinosaurs (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) with additional comments on the sauropods".
Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 132: 145–163.
• Sereno PC (2012) "Taxonomy, morphology, masticatory function and phylogeny of heterodontosaurid dinosaurs".
ZooKeys, (226): 1–225. DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.226.2840.
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