''Osmakasaurus'' (meaning "canyon lizard", ''ósmaka'' meaning "canyon" in the
Lakota language
Lakota ( ), also referred to as Lakhota, Teton or Teton Sioux, is a Siouan language spoken by the Lakota people of the Sioux tribes. Lakota is mutually intelligible with the two dialects of the Dakota language, especially Western Dakota, and i ...
) is a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of
herbivorous
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthpar ...
iguanodont
Iguanodontia (the iguanodonts) is a clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. Some members include ''Camptosaurus'', ''Dryosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', '' Tenontosaurus'', and the hadrosaurids or "duck-bil ...
ian
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
. It is a
basal iguanodont
Iguanodontia (the iguanodonts) is a clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. Some members include ''Camptosaurus'', ''Dryosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', '' Tenontosaurus'', and the hadrosaurids or "duck-bil ...
ian which lived during the
Early Cretaceous period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
(
Valanginian
In the geologic timescale, the Valanginian is an age or stage of the Early or Lower Cretaceous. It spans between 139.8 ± 3.0 Ma and 132.9 ± 2.0 Ma (million years ago). The Valanginian Stage succeeds the Berriasian Stage of the Lower Cretace ...
age) in what is now
Buffalo Gap of
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large porti ...
, United States. It is known from the Chilson Member of the
Lakota Formation
The Lakota Formation is a sequence of rocks of early Cretaceous ( Berriasian to Barremian) age from Western North America. Located in South Dakota, the name of the formation is derived from the Lakota Native American tribe.
There are two units ...
. This genus was named by Andrew T. McDonald in
2011 and the
type species
In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...
is ''O. depressus''.
Discovery and naming
The holotype, USNM 4753, was discovered by
Nelson Horatio Darton
Nelson Horatio Darton (December 17, 1865 – February 28, 1948) was a geologist who worked for the United States Geological Survey. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, started working in his uncle's drug business at thirteen years old, and b ...
in 1896 within a layer of the
Lakota Formation
The Lakota Formation is a sequence of rocks of early Cretaceous ( Berriasian to Barremian) age from Western North America. Located in South Dakota, the name of the formation is derived from the Lakota Native American tribe.
There are two units ...
. The type species ''O. depressus'' was previously referred to as ''
Camptosaurus
''Camptosaurus'' ( ) is a genus of plant-eating, beaked ornithischian dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic period of western North America and possibly also Europe. The name means 'flexible lizard' ( Greek (') meaning 'bent' and (') meaning 'li ...
depressus'', and was first described in 1909 by
Charles W. Gilmore.
It was assigned to the genus ''
Planicoxa'' as ''Planicoxa depressa'' in 2008.
In 2011, it was assigned to the new genus ''Osmakasaurus''.
References
Iguanodonts
Valanginian life
Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America
Cretaceous geology of South Dakota
Paleontology in South Dakota
Fossil taxa described in 2011
Ornithischian genera
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