Hippodraco
From Greek 'hippos' meaning 'horse' and Latin 'draco' meaning 'dragon', giving 'horse dragon'; the name refers to the elongated shape of the skull, which resembles a horse skull.
Early Cretaceous stages
Hippodraco is a genus of iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah, United States. The genus contains a single species, H. scutodens, known from a partial skeleton belonging to an immature individual.
Diagnosis
- Dentary tooth row strongly offset medially by rounded lateral shelf extending from first alveolus to coronoid process base
- Finely striated flange extending from caudoventral margin of jugal projecting caudal to jugal-quadratojugal contact
- Lack of gap (paraquadrate foramen) between quadratojugal and quadrate
Species
Hippodraco scutodens McDonald et al., 2010
Type species
From Latin 'scutum' ('shield') and 'dens' ('tooth'), referring to the shield-shaped crowns of the dentary teeth.
- Holotype
- UMNH VP 20208 , Utah Museum of Natural History
- Material
- Nearly complete skull and partial postcranium
- Horizon
- upper Yellow Cat Member, Cedar Mountain Formation, Barremian, Early Cretaceous , 125.8–121.4 million years ago
- Locality
- Andrew's Site, Utah, United States McDonald and colleagues (2010) date the Andrew's Site quarry "late Barremian to earliest Aptian" from a detrital-zircon age of 124 Ma in beds above its caprock, which is Barremian on the current chart.
References
- McDonald, A. T.; Kirkland, J. I.; DeBlieux, D. D.; Madsen, S. K.; Cavin, J.; Milner, A. R. C.; Panzarin, L. (2010). New Basal Iguanodonts from the Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah and the Evolution of Thumb-Spiked Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 5(11): e14075. Public Library of Science (PLoS). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014075 mcdonald2010b