Echinodon

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Echinodon
Fossil range: Early Cretaceous

Teeth and jaw fragment of Echinodon.

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Cerapoda
Family:	Heterodontosauridae
Genus:	Echinodon Owen, 1861

Species

E. becklesii Owen, 1861 (type)

Echinodon (eh-KY-no-don) meaning "prickly tooth" in reference to the spines on its teeth (Greek echino = prickly + odon = tooth), occasionally known as Saurechinodon, is a genus of small European dinosaur of the Early Cretaceous (Berriasian).

[edit] Discovery and species

The type specimen was discovered by Samuel Beckles near Swanage, England. A bipedal herbivore, it was around 0.6 meters (2 ft) long. Unlike most ornithischians, Echinodon had one or two caniniform teeth in each maxilla.

The only species is E. becklesii, named in 1861 by Richard Owen, who mistook it for a lizard.

[edit] Classification

Echinodon has at times been considered it a basal thyreophoran, mainly due to the erroneous association of turtle limb osteoderms with its remains. Paul Sereno's reclassification to Heterodontosauridae in 1991 remains somewhat controversial. David B. Norman and Paul M. Barrett redescribed Echinodon in 2002 and supported the heterodontosaurid classification, though using somewhat different evidence than Sereno. If Echinodon is a true heterodontosaurid, it is considerably younger than all other well-known members of this family.

[edit] References

Echinodon in The Dinosaur Encyclopaedia at Dino Russ's Lair
Echinodon at Thescelosaurus! (under Heterodontosauridae i.s.)
Norman, D.B. & P.M. Barrett, 2002. Ornithischian dinosaurs from the Lower Cretaceous (Berriasian) of England. Special Papers in Palaeontology 68: 161-189.