Pronunciation: KRIT-oh-SOR-us
Meaning: Separated lizard
Author/s: Brown (1910)
Synonyms: See below
First Discovery: New Mexico, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #95
Kritosaurus navajovius
When Barnum Brown first described the remains of Kritosaurus, he chose the name Nectosaurus and rebuilt its missing snout in the flat, ducky vision of what would become known as Anatotitan. As it happens, Nectosaurus was already occupied by a marine reptile (named by John C. Merriam, 1905) so Brown coined Kritosaurus as a replacement name in 1910 and six years later it received a facelift. Literally.
In 1916 Kritosaurus was restored with an arched snout, an idea Brown had nicked from Gilmore's Gryposaurus, and both palaeontologists suspected they may be the same creature. After the 1942 publication of Lull and Wright's monograph on hadrosaurs, Gryposaurus was sunk into Kritosaurus under the first name stands rule, and there it spent the next fifty odd years.
By the 1990s the validity of Kritosaurus was being called into question, and the "separated lizard" was separated again, from Gryposaurus, due mainly to its shabby remains and the whiff of uncertainty that surrounded them. At least for now, the slightly younger and primarily Canadian Gryposaurus is Gryposaurus again and gaining momentum, while Kritosaurus is fading into obscurity and receives only passing mention, mainly because of the dinosaurs that it has been historically entangled with.
In 1916 Kritosaurus was restored with an arched snout, an idea Brown had nicked from Gilmore's Gryposaurus, and both palaeontologists suspected they may be the same creature. After the 1942 publication of Lull and Wright's monograph on hadrosaurs, Gryposaurus was sunk into Kritosaurus under the first name stands rule, and there it spent the next fifty odd years.
By the 1990s the validity of Kritosaurus was being called into question, and the "separated lizard" was separated again, from Gryposaurus, due mainly to its shabby remains and the whiff of uncertainty that surrounded them. At least for now, the slightly younger and primarily Canadian Gryposaurus is Gryposaurus again and gaining momentum, while Kritosaurus is fading into obscurity and receives only passing mention, mainly because of the dinosaurs that it has been historically entangled with.
(Separated lizard of the Navajo)
Etymology
Kritosaurus is derived from the Greek "kritos" (separated, referring to the separation of its "weathered out" skull bones) and "sauros" (lizard).
The species epithet, navajovius, honors the Navajo Indians who inhabited the area.
Anasazisaurus horneri? (Hunt and Lucas, 1993)
Naashoibitosaurus ostromi? (Hunt and Lucas, 1993)
Discovery
The remains of Kritosaurus were discovered in the De-na-zin Member of the Kirtland Formation, near Ojo Alamo, San Juan County, New Mexico, USA, by Barnum Brown on August 27th 1904, after the report of "numerous fossils" in the area by George Hubbard Pepper of the Hyde Exploring Expeditions in 1902.
The holotype (AMNH 5799) is a partial and poorly-preserved skull.
