Theiophytalia

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Theiophytalia
Fossil range: Early Cretaceous

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Ornithopoda
Infraorder:	Iguanodontia
Genus:	Theiophytalia Brill & Carpenter, 2006

Species

T. kerri Brill & Carpenter, 2006 (type)

Theiophytalia is a genus of herbivorous dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Colorado (Brill & Carpenter, 2006). The etymology of the generic name is, from Greek, theios: "divine" + Greek phytalia: "garden", or "garden of the gods". Garden of the Gods is a park near Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a skull, the only fossil of the genus yet to be discovered, was found in 1878. The specific name kerri honors James Hutchinson Kerr, who found the specimen.

The holotype is a partial skull that was referred by O.C. Marsh (affirmed by Gilmore, 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. However, microscopic comparisons of microscopic 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; therefore, the skull was Early Cretaceous in age. Detailed comparisons by Brill and Carpenter (2006) also showed that the skull differed in a number of key features from that of Camptosaurus

The article describing the find classified Theiophytalia as intermediate in derivation between Camptosaurus and Iguanodon. The type species is Theiophytalia kerri.

[edit] References

Brill, K., and K. Carpenter. 2006. A Description of a New Ornithopod from the Lytle Member of the Purgatoire Formation (Lower Cretaceous) and a Reassessment of the Skull of Camptosaurus; pp. 49-67 in K. Carpenter (ed.), Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

Gilmore, C.W. 1909. Osteology of the Jurassic reptile Camptosaurus, with a revision of the species of the genus, and description of two new species. Proceedings U.S. National Museum, 36:197-332.