Open Paleo

Polyonax

Cope, 1874 pol-ee-OH-naks Nomen dubium

From Greek 'polys' meaning 'many' and 'anax' meaning 'master' or 'lord', meaning 'master over many.'

72.2–66.0 million years ago Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous
Late Cretaceous stages

Polyonax is a dubious genus of ceratopsid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) of Colorado, United States, founded on fragmentary remains probably from the Laramie Formation.

Species

Polyonax mortuarius Cope, 1874 Nomen dubium

Type species

From Latin 'mortuarius' meaning 'of the dead' or 'funerary'.

Holotype
AMNH FR 3950 , American Museum of Natural History
Material
At least three posterior dorsal vertebrae (neural arches co-ossified) and fragments of limb bones, including portions of a tibia and fibula
Horizon
Laramie Formation, Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous , 72.2–66.0 million years ago
Locality
East Bijou Creek, Colorado, United States Cope names no formation for the type material, only Colorado. The Laramie follows Carpenter and Young's (2002) reconstruction of Cope's 1873 Bijou Creek route, which they themselves call uncertain, and which leaves the Denver Formation open for a specimen collected on the same trip.

References

  1. Cope, E. D. (1874). Report on the stratigraphy and Pliocene vertebrate paleontology of northern Colorado. Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories 1(1): 9-22.

    Names the species in a footnote, on a collection made by an assistant from strata in Colorado the author correlates with the Great Lignite, without a locality.

    cope1874a
  2. Cope, E. D. (1875). Report on the Vertebrate Paleontology of Colorado. United States Geological Survey of the Territories 429-533.

    Provides a fuller description of Polyonax mortuarius than the original 1874 notice. Places the material at one of two localities in Colorado "not many miles apart", neither of them named.

    cope1875a
  3. Hatcher, J. B.; Marsh, O. C.; Lull, R. S. (1907). The Ceratopsia. Monographs of the United States Geological Survey 49: 1-300. United States Geological Survey.

    Abandoned Polyonax as founded on totally inadequate material, while holding that the remains are undoubtedly ceratopsian and that Cope's supposed ischia are frontal horn cores.

    hatcher1907a
  4. Carpenter, K.; Young, D. B. (2002). Late Cretaceous dinosaurs from the Denver Basin, Colorado. Rocky Mountain Geology 37(2): 237-254.

    Lists the holotype as an indeterminate ceratopsid, concurring with Hatcher (1907). Source of the Laramie attribution and the East Bijou Creek locality, reconstructed from Cope's 1873 route.

    carpenter2002a