Trachodon Explained

Trachodon (meaning "rough tooth") is a dubious genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur based on teeth from the Campanian-age Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation of Montana, U.S.^[1] It is a historically important genus with a convoluted taxonomy that has been all but abandoned by modern dinosaur paleontologists.^[2]

Despite being used for decades as the iconic duckbill dinosaur, the material it is based on is composed of teeth from both duckbills and ceratopsids (their teeth have a distinctive double root^[3]), and its describer, Joseph Leidy, came to recognize the difference and suggested limiting the genus to what would now be seen as ceratopsid teeth.^[2] Restricted to the duckbill teeth, it may have been a lambeosaurine.^[4]

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).^{[1] [5]} 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.

Trachodon was based on ANSP 9260, seven unassociated teeth, one of which had double roots. With better remains from Hadrosaurus, he began to reconsider his taxonomy, and suggested, at least informally, that Trachodon should refer to the double-rooted tooth, and the other teeth should be referred to Hadrosaurus.^[6] In the Bone Wars that followed, and their wake, the taxonomy of Trachodon and its relatives became increasingly confusing,^[2] with one author going so far as to sink all known hadrosaur species into Trachodon except for Claosaurus agilis,^[7] but as new material was described from the Rocky Mountain region, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, later authors began progressively restricting the reach of this genus.^{[4] [8]}

By 1942, and the publication of the influential Lull-Wright monograph on duckbills, its holotype was regarded as "typical of all the genera of hadrosaurian dinosaur", except for the roughened margin that gave it its name, and that they regarded as due to the tooth having not been used (p. 149).^[9] The name is no longer in use, except in historical discussions, and is considered a nomen dubium.^{[10] [11] [12]}

In 1936, paleontologist Charles Sternberg compared the holotype teeth of Trachodon mirabilis to those of more completely known hadrosaurids and noted that they were most similar to those of lambeosaurines.^[4] It has been reported that paleontologist John R. Horner also found that Trachodon teeth compare well with the teeth of lambeosaurines, specifically Corythosaurus, though they also share similarities with the genus Prosaurolophus.^[13]

Species

Numerous species have been referred to this genus, mostly before World War I. Only those originally named as a species of Trachodon are considered here.

Type species

T. mirabilis Leidy, 1856^[1]

Other species:

• T. amurense Riabinin, 1925^[14] (based on IVP AS collection, a partial skeleton from Upper Cretaceous rocks of the Amur River banks of Heilongjiang in northeast China, amended to T. amurensis and now the type species of Mandschurosaurus)^[15]
• T. cantabrigiensis (nomen dubium) Lydekker, 1888^[16] (based on BMNH R.496, a dentary tooth from the late Albian-age Lower Cretaceous Cambridge Greensand, Cambridgeshire, England, regarded as a dubious early hadrosaurid)^{[11] [12]}
• T. longiceps (nomen dubium) Marsh, 1897^[17] (based on YPM 616, a large right dentary with teeth from the late Maastrichtian-age Upper Cretaceous Lance Formation of Wyoming, U.S., later assigned to Anatotitan)^[11]
• T. marginatus (nomen dubium) Lambe, 1902^[18] (based on NMC 419, disassociated postcranial material; later made the type species of the genus Stephanosaurus marginatus^[19] and then referred to Kritosaurus as Kritosaurus marginatus,^[20] which is not supported by later reviews.^{[11] [12]})
• T. (Pteropelyx) selwyni (nomen dubium) Lambe, 1902^[18] (based on NMC 290, a dentary with teeth, from the Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta; too fragmentary to assign beyond Hadrosauridae)^{[11] [12]}

Paleobiology

As a hadrosaurid, Trachodon would have been a large, bipedal/quadrupedal herbivore.^[12]

See also

• Timeline of hadrosaur research
• Eotrachodon

Notes and References

1. Leidy, J. (1856). "Notice of remains of extinct reptiles and fishes, discovered by F. V. Hayden in the Bad Lands of the Judith River, Nebraska Territories." Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science Philadelphia, 8(25 March): 72–73.
2. Creisler, B.S. (2007). Deciphering duckbills. in: K. Carpenter (ed.), Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis, 185–210.
3. Hatcher, J.B., Marsh, O.C. and Lull, R.S. (1907). The Ceratopsia. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 300 pp.
4. Sternberg, C.M. (1936). The systematic position of Trachodon. Journal of Paleontology 10(7):652–655.
5. Peter . Dodson . Dinosaurs in America – Joseph Leidy & the Academy of Natural Sciences . American Paleontologist . 17 . 2 . 2009. 32.
6. Leidy, J. (1868). Remarks on a jaw fragment of Megalosaurus. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Science Philadelphia 20:197–200.
7. Hatcher, J.B. (1902). The genus and species of the Trachodontidae (Hadrosauridae, Claosauridae) Marsh. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 14(1):377–386.
8. Gilmore, C.W. (1915). On the genus Trachodon. Science 41:658–660.
9. Lull, R.S., and Wright, N.E. (1942). Hadrosaurian Dinosaurs of North America. Geological Society of America Special Paper 40:1–242.
10. Coombs, Jr., W.P. (1988). The status of the dinosaurian genus Diclonius and the taxonomic utility of hadrosaurian teeth. Journal of Paleontology 62:812–818.
11. Weishampel, D.B., and Horner, J.R. (1990). Hadrosauridae. In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria. University of California Press:Berkeley, 534–561.
12. Horner, J.R., Weishampel, D.B., and Forster, C.A. (2004). Hadrosauridae. In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria (second edition). University of California Press:Berkeley, 438–463.
13. Olshevsky, G. (1997), "Re: Ye Olde Duckbill Dinosaur", discussion group, The Dinosaur Mailing List, 8 August 1997. Accessed 6 April 2013.
14. Riabinin, A.N. (1925). A mounted skeleton of the gigantic reptile Trachodon amurense, nov. sp. Izvest. Geol. Kom. 44(1):1–12. [Russian]
15. Riabinin, A.N. (1930). Mandschurosaurus amurensis, nov. gen., nov. sp., a hadrosaurian dinoasur from the Upper Cretaceous of Amur River. Mémoir II, Société Paléontologique de Russie. [Russian]
16. Lydekker, R. (1888). Note on a new Wealden iguanodont and other dinosaurs. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 44:46–61.
17. Marsh, O.C. (1897). Vertebrate fossils of the Denver Basin. U.S. Geological Survey, Monthly 27:473–527.
18. Lambe, L.M. (1902). On Vertebrata of the mid-Cretaceous of the Northwest Territory. 2. New genera and species from the Belly River Series (mid-Cretaceous). Contributions to Canadian Paleontology 3:25–81.
19. Lambe, L.M. (1914). On a new genus and species of carnivorous dinosaur from the Belly River Formation of Alberta, with a description of the skull of Stephanosaurus marginatus from the same horizon. Ottawa Naturalist 28:13–20.
20. Gilmore . Charles W. . Charles Whitney Gilmore . 1924 . On the genus Stephanosaurus, with a description of the type specimen of Lambeosaurus lambei, Parks . Canada Department of Mines Geological Survey Bulletin (Geological Series) . 38 . 43 . 29–48.