Stegosaurian dinosaur genus from Early Cretaceous South Africa
Paranthodon
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 132 Ma
PreꞒ
Ꞓ
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
↓
Possible Late Jurassic record
Reconstruction of the skull; grey material is unknown.
Scientific classification
Domain:
Eukaryota
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Clade:
Dinosauria
Clade:
†Ornithischia
Clade:
†Thyreophora
Clade:
†Stegosauria
Family:
†Stegosauridae
Genus:
†Paranthodon Nopcsa, 1929[2]
Species:
†P. africanus
Binomial name
†Paranthodon africanus
Broom, 1912[1]
Synonyms[4]
Anthodon serrarius Owen, 1876 (in part)[3]
Palaeoscincus africanus Broom, 1912[1]
Paranthodon owenii Nopcsa, 1929[2]
Paranthodon (/pəˈrænθədɒn/pə-RAN-thə-don[5]) is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in what is now South Africa during the Early Cretaceous, between 139 and 131 million years ago. Discovered in 1845, it was one of the first stegosaurians found. Its only remains, a partial skull, isolated teeth, and fragments of vertebrae, were found in the Kirkwood Formation. British paleontologist Richard Owen initially identified the fragments as those of the pareiasaur Anthodon. After remaining untouched for years in the British Museum of Natural History, the partial skull was identified by South African paleontologist Robert Broom as belonging to a different genus; he named the specimen Palaeoscincus africanus. Several years later, Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa, unaware of Broom's new name, similarly concluded that it represented a new taxon, and named it Paranthodon owenii. Since Nopcsa's species name was assigned after Broom's, and Broom did not assign a new genus, both names are now synonyms of the current binomial, Paranthodon africanus. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek para (near) with the genus name Anthodon, to represent the initial referral of the remains.
In identifying the remains as those of Palaeoscincus, Broom initially classified Paranthodon as an ankylosaurian, a statement backed by the research of Coombs in the 1970s. In 1929, Nopcsa identified the taxon as a stegosaurid, with which most modern studies agree. In 1981, the genus was reviewed with modern taxonomic techniques, and found to be a valid genus of stegosaurid. A 2018 review of Paranthodon could only identify one distinguishing feature, and while that study still referred it to Stegosauria based on similarity and multiple phylogenetic analyses, no diagnostic features of the group could be identified in Paranthodon.
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Paranthodon (/pəˈrænθədɒn/ pə-RAN-thə-don) is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in what is now South Africa during the Early Cretaceous, between...
South Africa, remains were discovered that much later would be named Paranthodon. In 1874, other remains from England were named Craterosaurus. All three...
and Miragaia than it is to the southern African taxa Kentrosaurus and Paranthodon. This places it in the subfamily Dacentrurinae, which was previously...
Elrhazosaurus, Rebbachisaurus, Nigersaurus, Kryptops, Nqwebasaurus, and Paranthodon are some of the Early Cretaceous dinosaurs known from Africa. The Early...
stegosaur of which good remains had ever been discovered; earlier finds as Paranthodon, Regnosaurus and Craterosaurus were too limited to be directly recognisable...
Used for species that resemble previously named species. Examples: Paranthodon ("nearly flower tooth"); Pararhabdodon ("near fluted tooth"); Parasaurolophus...
the Kirkwood Formation include the iguanodontian Iyuku, the stegosaur Paranthodon, the ornithomimosaur Nqwebasaurus, and several other unnamed dinosaurs...
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