''Theiophytalia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of herbivorous iguanodontian

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 ...

from the lower

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

period (

Aptian The Aptian is an age in the geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early or Lower Cretaceous Epoch or Series and encompasses the time from 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma to 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma (million years ago), a ...

- Albian stage, about 112 million years ago) of

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, USA. It contains a single species, ''T. kerri''.

Description

Detailed comparisons by Brill and Carpenter (2006) also showed that the skull differed in a number of key features from that of ''Camptosaurus'', namely: a longer, heavier, and more rugose snout; a wider dorsal process on the maxilla; a proportionally smaller antorbital fenestra; and stouter

quadrate Quadrate may refer to: * Quadrate bone * Quadrate (heraldry) * Quadrate lobe of liver * Quadrate tubercle The quadrate tubercle is a small tubercle found upon the upper part of the femur. It serves as a point of insertion of the quadratus femori ...

, with a bulbous articulation for the lower jaw. Compare the skull image with that of '' Camptosaurus''. Therefore, they put it into its own genus and species.

Discovery

In 1878, a student of Colorado College named James Kerr found a partial Ornithopod skull at Garden of the Gods Park in El Paso County,

. The skull, YPM 1887, was referred by

O.C. Marsh Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among h ...

(affirmed by

Gilmore Gilmore or Gillmore may refer to: *Gilmore (surname) Places Australia *Gilmore, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb in the Canberra district of Tuggeranong *Gilmore Avenue, a road in southern Perth, Western Australia *Division of Gilmore, an ...

, 1909), to whom the skull was given in 1886, as that of '' Camptosaurus amplus''. Gilmore used the skull to reconstruct the skull of ''Camptosaurus'' assuming that it came from the

Morrison Formation The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic, Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandsto ...

. However, microscopic comparisons of thin-sections of the Mesozoic formations in the Garden of the Gods showed that the specimen actually came from the Lytle Member of the

Purgatoire Formation The Purgatoire Formation is an abandoned (1987) Cretaceous period geologic formation classification. The classification was used in Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, with mentions in older geologic literature in neighboring states.Griggs and Re ...

; therefore, the skull was Early Cretaceous in age. The generic name is, from Greek, θειος, ''theios'': "divine" + Greek φυταλία, ''phytalia'': "garden", or "garden of the gods". Garden of the Gods is a park in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a skull, the only fossil of the genus yet to be discovered, was found in 1878. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

''kerri'' honors James Hutchinson Kerr, who found the specimen.

Classification

The article describing the find classified ''Theiophytalia'' as intermediate in derivation between ''Camptosaurus'' and '' Iguanodon''. 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 specimen ...

is ''Theiophytalia kerri''. In 2010 and 2011 cladistic analyses of McDonald and colleagues, ''Theiophytalia'' has been recovered as a basal member of the

Styracosterna Ankylopollexia is an extinct clade of ornithischian dinosaurs that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. It is a derived clade of iguanodontian ornithopods and contains the subgroup Styracosterna. The name stems from the Greek word ...

and its closest relative was ''

Hippodraco ''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 immatur ...

''.

References

External links

Dinosaur Mailing List entry, which announces the new genus
{{Taxonbar, from=Q1655417 Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Iguanodonts Fossil taxa described in 2006 Taxa named by Kenneth Carpenter Paleontology in Colorado Ornithischian genera