Diclonius

This article is about a type of dinosaur. For the fictional Mutant race from the manga / anime series Elfen Lied, see Elfen Lied#Diclonius.

Diclonius Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Ornithopoda
Infraorder:	Iguanodontia
Superfamily:	Hadrosauroidea
Family:	Hadrosauridae
Genus:	Diclonius Cope, 1876
Species
?D. pentagonus  ?D. calamarius  ?D. perangulatus

Diclonius (meaning "double sprout") is a genus of dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous. It was a hadrosaur based solely on teeth. Its fossils have been found in North America. The name is in reference to the method of tooth replacement, in which newly erupting replacement teeth could be in functional use at the same time as older, more worn teeth. Thus, the number of "sprouting" teeth was doubled in comparison to Monoclonius ("single sprout"), which used only one set of teeth at a time and which Cope named in the same paper.^[1]

The type species, Diclonius pentagonus, is a nomen nudum discovered by Cope in 1876. Other formally undescribed species include D. calamarius and D. perangulatus. A "fourth" species has been reclassified as Anatotitan. They are all tooth taxa, known only from teeth and one jaw.

Although Cope referred several other batches of teeth to the genus, under several species, the name is considered a nomen dubium.

Species

Type:

• D. pentagonus Cope, 1876 (type); fragmentary dentary with teeth

Other Species:

• D. calamarius Cope, 1876; teeth
• D. mirabilis (Leidy, 1856) Cope, 1883; included in part with Trachodon mirabilis and Anatotitan copei *
• D. perangulatus Cope, 1876; teeth

*Note: Diclonius mirabilis is actually the assignment of Trachodon mirabilis to Diclonius by Cope (1883).

Other uses

Diclonius is also the name of a human-like race from the anime series Elfen Lied.

Sources

• Cope, E. D. 1883. The structure and appearance of the Laramie dinosaurian. American Naturalist 37:774-777.
• Coombs, W. 1988. The status of the dinosaurian genus Diclonius and the taxonomic utility of hadrosaurian teeth. Journal of Paleontology 62:812-817.

References

1. ^ Creisler, Benjamin S. (September 1992). "Why Monoclonius Cope Was Not Named for Its Horn: The Etymologies of Cope's Dinosaurs". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 12 (3): 313–317. doi:10.2307/4523455 (inactive 16 April 2009). JSTOR 4523455. 

External links

• Thescelosaurus! Web site

Dinosaurs portal