kids encyclopedia robot

Lophorhothon facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts
Quick facts for kids
Lophorhothon
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, ~80Ma
Lophorhothon atopus.jpg
Skull
Scientific classification e
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Suborder: Ornithopoda
Clade: Hadrosauromorpha
Genus: Lophorhothon
Langston, 1960
Type species
Lophorhothon atopus
Langston, 1960

Lophorhothon (Langston, 1960) is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, the first genus of dinosaur discovered in Alabama, in the United States.

Discovery and naming

Remains of this small, poorly known perhaps saurolophine dinosaur were first discovered during the 1940s, from extensive erosional outcrops of the lower unnamed member of the Mooreville Chalk Formation in Dallas County, west of the town of Selma, Alabama.

Taxonomic status

A number of workers have questioned the validity of L. atopus. It may have been a premature Prosaurolophus.

Holotype

The holotype specimen was likely washed out to sea by a river, where it eventually sank and was buried in the silty carbonate sediments of Alabama.

  • Horner, J. R., Weishampel, D. B., and Forster, C. A. 2004. Chapter Twenty: Hadrosauridae. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.
  • Lamb, J. P. 1998. Lophorothon, an iguanodontian, not a hadrosaur. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 18 (3 Abstracts): 59A.
  • Langston, W. 1960. The vertebrate fauna of the Selma Formation of Alabama, part VI: the dinosaurs. Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs 3(5): 315–359.
  • Schwimmer, D. R. 1997. Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in eastern USA: a taphonomic and biogeographic model of occurrences, p. 203–211. In D. L. Wolberg, E. Stump, and G. D. Rosenberg (eds.), Dinofest International. The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
  • Thurmond, J. T. and Jones, D. E. 1981. Fossil vertebrates of Alabama. University of Alabama Press.

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Lophorhothon atopus para niños

kids search engine
Lophorhothon Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.