Fossil Wiki:Featured articles/Kritosaurus



Kritosaurus (meaning "separated lizard"; sometimes misinterpreted as "noble lizard", in reference to the presumed "Roman nose"; the nasal region was fragmented, disarticulated, and originally restored flat) is an incompletely known but historically important genus of extinct hadrosaurid (duckbilled) dinosaur. It lived about 73 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous of North and possibly South America. Its taxonomic history is convoluted, also incorporating Gryposaurus, Anasazisaurus, and Naashoibitosaurus; this tangle will remain unresolved until better remains of Kritosaurus are described. Despite the dearth of material, this herbivore appeared in dinosaur books until the 1990s, although what was usually represented was the much more completely known Gryposaurus, then thought to be a synonym. In 1904, Barnum Brown discovered the type specimen (AMNH 5799) of Kritosaurus near Ojo Alamo, San Juan County, New Mexico, United States, while following up on a previous expedition. He initially could not definitely correlate the stratigraphy, but by 1916 was able to establish it as from what is now known as the late Campanian-age De-na-zin Member of the Kirtland Formation. (Read more...)