Neosodon

Neosodon Temporal range: Upper Jurassic
Neosodon teeth
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Sauropodomorpha
Infraorder:	Sauropoda
(unranked):	?Turiasauria
Genus:	Neosodon Moussaye, 1885
Species:	N. praecursor

Neosodon (meaning "new tooth") was a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Late Tithonian-age Upper Jurassic Sables et Grès à Trigonia gribosa of Départment du Pas-de-Calais, France. It has never been formally given a species name, but is often seen as N. praecursor, which actually comes from a different animal. Often in the past, it had been assigned to the wastebasket taxon Pelorosaurus, but restudy has suggested that it could be related to Turiasaurus, a roughly-contemporaneous giant Spanish sauropod.

History and Taxonomy

Moussaye named this genus for a large, broken, worn tooth found in Wilmille, near Boulogne-sur-Mer, and neglected to give it a species name. He thought that it belonged to a theropod like Megalosaurus.^[1]

Sauvage synonymized it with his tooth species Iguanodon praecursor,^[2] which by this time had become mixed up with Edward Drinker Cope's roughly contemporaneous American Morrison Formation genus Caulodon (now a synonym of Camarasaurus). However, the two are not based on the same type, as "I". praecursor comes from slightly older rocks: the same unnamed Kimmeridgian formation as Morinosaurus.^[3] Earlier reviews (Romer, 1956; Steel, 1970) accepted it as a synonym of Pelorosaurus, and considered it a possible brachiosaurid.^[4][5]

In the 1990s, French researchers published on new camarasaurid bones from the same formation. At first, Buffetaut and Martin (1993) suggested that they belonged to Neosodon praecursor,^[6] but Le Loeuff et al. (1996) later rejected this, as Neosodon is based only on a tooth, which did not overlap the new material.^[7] The latest review accepted both Neosodon and "Iguanodon" praecursor as dubious sauropods.^[8] However, Royo-Torres et al. (2006), in their description of Turiasaurus, noted that this tooth was similar to those of their genus and suggested that it could be a turiasaur.^[9]

Paleobiology

The tooth is large (60 mm [2.36 in] tall and a cross-section of 35 by 20 mm [1.38 by 0.79 in] in its incomplete state, estimated at 80 mm [3.15 in] tall if complete)^[1] and spear-like or spatulate in shape. The owner would have been a large, quadrupedal herbivore.^[8]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Moussaye, M. de la. (1885). Sur une dent de Neosodon, trouvée dans les sables ferruginaux de Wilmille. Bulletin, Société Géologique de France 3(13):51-53. [French]
2. ^ Sauvage, H.E. (1888). Sur les reptiles trouvés dans le Portlandian supérieur de Boulogne-sur-mer. Bulletin du Muséum National d'Historie Naturalle, Paris. 3(16):626. [French]
3. ^ Weishampel, D.B., Barrett, P.M., Coria, R.A., Le Loeuff, J., Xu Xing, Zhao Xijin, Sahni, A., Gomani, E.M.P., and Noto, C.R. (2004). Dinosaur Distribution: in Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd edition). University of California Press:Berkeley 517-606. ISBN 0-520-24209-2
4. ^ Romer, A.S. (1956). Osteology of the Reptiles. University of Chicago Press:Chicago 1-772. ISBN 0-89464-985-X
5. ^ Steel, R. (1970). Part 14. Saurischia. Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie/Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology. Part 14. Gustav Fischer Verlag:Stuttgart p. 1-87.
6. ^ Buffetaut, E., and Martin, M. (1993). Late Jurassic dinosaurs from the Boulonnais (northern France): a review. Revue de Paléobiologie, Volume spéciale 7:17-28.
7. ^ Le Loeuff, J., Buffetaut, E., and Merser, C. (1996). Discovery of a Tithonian sauropod dinosaur in Charente (western France). Géologie de la France 2:79-81. [French]
8. ^ ^{a b} Upchurch, P.M., Barrett, P.M., and Dodson, P. (2004). Sauropoda. In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria (2nd edition). University of California Press:Berkeley 259-322. ISBN 0-520-24209-2
9. ^ Royo-Torres, R., Cobos, A., and Alcalá, L. (2006). A giant European dinosaur and a new sauropod clade. Science 314:1925-1927.

External links

• Dinosaurs of France
• Paleobiology Database entry; see Taxonomic History for some idea of the confusion regarding "I." praecursor

Dinosaurs portal