Eotrachodon

Eotrachodon
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 86–83.6 Ma
Right maxilla
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Ornithopoda
Family: Hadrosauridae
Genus: Eotrachodon
Prieto-Marquez, Erickson and Ebersole, 2016[1]
Type species
Eotrachodon orientalis
Prieto-Marquez, Erickson and Ebersole, 2016[1]

Eotrachodon orientalis is a species of hadrosaurid that was described in 2016. The holotype was found in the Mooreville Chalk Formation (Upper Santonian) in Alabama in 2007, sharing the same habitat with Lophorhothon which was another primitive hadrosaur known from skull fragments, with an exceptionally well-preserved skull, making it a rare find among dinosaurs of Appalachia, though Eotrachodon did live a few million years before Lophorhothon. A phylogenetic study has found Eotrachodon to be the sister taxon to the hadrosaurid subfamilies Lambeosaurinae and Saurolophinae. This along with the other Appalachian hadrosaur Hadrosaurus and possibly Lophorhothon, Claosaurus and both species of Hypsibema, suggests that Appalachia was the ancestral area of Hadrosauridae.[1]

Life reconstruction of Eotrachodon orientalis
Hadrosauridae

Hadrosaurus foulkii




Eotrachodon orientalis


Saurolophidae (=Euhadrosauria)

Lambeosaurinae



Saurolophinae





References

  1. 1 2 3 Prieto-Marquez, Albert; Erickson, Gregory M.; Ebersole, Jun A. (2016). "A primitive hadrosaurid from southeastern North America and the origin and early evolution of 'duck-billed' dinosaurs". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 36 (2): e1054495. doi:10.1080/02724634.2015.1054495.

Further reading

  • Prieto-Márquez, Albert; Erickson, Gregory M.; Ebersole, Jun A. (14 April 2016). "Anatomy and osteohistology of the basal hadrosaurid dinosaur Eotrachodon from the uppermost Santonian (Cretaceous) of southern Appalachia". PeerJ. 4: e1872. doi:10.7717/peerj.1872. 
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