Priodontognathus
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Priodontognathus Temporal range: ?Upper Jurassic |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | Thyreophora |
| Infraorder: | Ankylosauria |
| Family: | uncertain |
| Genus: |
Priodontognathus Seeley, 1875 |
| Species: |
P. phillipsii (Seeley, 1869 [originally Iguanodon]) |
| Binomial name | |
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Priodontognathus phillipsii (Seeley, 1869) |
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Priodontognathus (meaning "saw tooth jaw") was a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur possibly from the Oxfordian-age Upper Jurassic Lower Calcareous Grit of Yorkshire, England. It is a dubious genus based on a maxilla, and has been erroneously mixed up with iguanodonts and stegosaurs.
English paleontologist Harry Govier Seeley, who described the genus, first mentioned the holotype (SMC B53408), a maxilla or upper jaw bone, in 1869. Seeley was at the time compiling a catalogue of the fossils of the Woodwardian Museum. Part of these formed the Forbes Collection that after the death of James Forbes-Young had in 1862 been donated to the University of Cambridge by his sons Charles Young and Henry Young. The provenance of this particular bone from that collection was unknown; first believed to be found near Tilgate from a Lower Cretaceous stratum, it was later thought to have been discovered somewhere near the coast of Yorkshire in a Jurassic layer. Seeley initially assumed that it was referable to Iguanodon, and named it Iguanodon Phillipsii. The specific name honoured geology professor John Phillips. The five inch long fragment lacked the teeth, only seventeen empty tooth sockets being visible. By 1875, after subsequent preparation had uncovered the replacement teeth within the jaw bone, Seeley had recognized that it was different, and so gave it the generic name Priodontognathus. The name is derived from Greek prion, "saw", odous, "tooth" and gnathos, "jaw", in recognition of the form of its teeth. Because the replacement teeth had not yet erupted, their serrations had not been worn down and many sharp denticula could be seen, shaped as the points of a saw.
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