''Uteodon'' (meaning " Ute tooth") is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It is a

basal Basal or basilar is a term meaning ''base'', ''bottom'', or ''minimum''. Science * Basal (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features associated with the base of an organism or structure * Basal (medicine), a minimal level that is nec ...

iguanodontian which lived during the late Jurassic period (

Tithonian In the geological timescale, the Tithonian is the latest age of the Late Jurassic Epoch and the uppermost stage of the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 152.1 ± 4 Ma and 145.0 ± 4 Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the K ...

age) in what is now

Uintah County Uintah County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 35,620. Its county seat and largest city is Vernal. The county was named for the portion of the Ute Indian tribe that lived in the b ...

, Utah. It is known from the middle of the Brushy Basin Member,

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 ...

. The genus was named by Andrew T. McDonald in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

and the type species is ''U. aphanoecetes''. it has also been reported from portugal.

History

The holotype specimen, CM 11337 (a virtually complete skeleton minus the skull and tail), was assigned to '' Camptosaurus medius'' ( Marsh, 1894) by Charles W. Gilmore in 1925. When ''C. medius'' was synonymised with ''Camptosaurus dispar'' in 1980, G.S. Paul (2010) "'' The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs''". (Page 284). the holotype was seen to probably represent a new, then unnamed, species of ''Camptosaurus''. The species '' Camptosaurus aphanoecetes'' was first described in 2008 by Carpenter and Wilson. In 2011, it was assigned to the new genus ''Uteodon''. In 2015, the ''Uteodon'' braincase was referred to '' Dryosaurus,'' and ''Uteodon'' and '' Cumnoria'' were synonymized with ''Camptosaurus'', as ''C. aphanoectes'' and ''C. prestwichii,'' respectively.

Description

Based on the holotype and the related genus '' Camptosaurus'', when fully grown, ''Uteodon'' would have grown up to around long and would probably have weighed no more than around , although according to Hartman (2013), ''Uteodon'' could have been as small as around long.

Paleoecology

Provenance and occurrence

The single known specimen of ''Uteodon'', CM 11337, was found in the Dry Mesa Quarry/ Douglass Quarry of the Brushy Basin Member of the

, Utah. The rocks it was found in were medium-grained, coarse sandstone that was deposited during the

and Kimmeridgian stages of the Late Jurassic period, approximately 153 to 148 million years ago.

Fauna and habitat

Studies suggest that the paleoenvironment of this section of the Morrison Formation included rivers that flowed from the west into a basin that contained a giant, saline alkaline lake and there were extensive wetlands in the vicinity. The Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry of western Colorado yields one of the most diverse Upper Jurassic vertebrate assemblages in the world.Richmond, D.R. and Morris, T.H., (1999), Stratigraphy and cataclysmic deposition of the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, Mesa County, Colorado, in Carpenter, K., Kirkland, J., and Chure, D., eds., The Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation: An Interdisciplinary Study, ''Modern Geology v. 22'', no. 1-4, pp. 121–143. The Dry Mesa Quarry has produced the remains of the sauropods '' Apatosaurus'', '' Diplodocus'', '' Barosaurus'', ''

Supersaurus ''Supersaurus'' (meaning "super lizard") is a genus of diplodocid Sauropoda, sauropod dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period. The type species, ''S. vivianae'', was first discovered by Vivian Jones of Delta, Colorad ...

'', and ''

Camarasaurus ''Camarasaurus'' ( ) was a genus of quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaurs and is the most common North American sauropod fossil. Its fossil remains have been found in the Morrison Formation, dating to the Late Jurassic epoch (Kimmeridgian to Titho ...

'', the iguanodonts '' Camptosaurus'' and '' Dryosaurus'', and the theropods '' Allosaurus'', '' Torvosaurus''. ''

Tanycolagreus ''Tanycolagreus'' is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod from the Late Jurassic of North America. Discovery and naming In 1995 Western Paleontological Laboratories, Inc. uncovered the partial skeleton of a small theropod at the Bone Cabin Quarr ...

'', '' Koparion'', '' Stokesosaurus'', '' Ceratosaurus'', and '' Ornitholestes'', as well as '' Nanosaurus'', '' Gargoyleosaurus'', and '' Stegosaurus''. The flora of the period has been revealed by fossils of

green algae The green algae (singular: green alga) are a group consisting of the Prasinodermophyta and its unnamed sister which contains the Chlorophyta and Charophyta/Streptophyta. The land plants (Embryophytes) have emerged deep in the Charophyte alga as ...

, fungi,

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) '' sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and hor ...

es, horsetails, ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and several families of

conifer Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...

s. Animal fossils discovered include

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

s, snails, ray-finned fishes, frogs, salamanders,

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

s, turtles, sphenodonts,

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia alt ...

s, terrestrial (like ''

Hoplosuchus ''Hoplosuchus'' is a genus of crocodylomorph belonging to Protosuchidae. It is so far only known definitely from one specimen, a skeleton collected from sandstone of the Upper Jurassic-age Morrison Formation rocks at Dinosaur National Monument, ...

'') and aquatic crocodylomorphans, cotylosaurs, several species of pterosaurs like '' Harpactognathus'', and early

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s, multituberculates, symmetrodonts, and

triconodonts Eutriconodonta is an order of early mammals. Eutriconodonts existed in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. The order was named by Kermack ''et al.'' in 1973 as a replacement name for the ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q420956 Iguanodonts Late Jurassic dinosaurs of North America Fossil taxa described in 2011 Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation Paleontology in Utah Ornithischian genera