Rhabdodon
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Rhabdodon Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 70–66 Ma |
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| Reconstructed R. priscus skeleton | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | †Ornithopoda |
| Family: | †Rhabdodontidae |
| Genus: |
†Rhabdodon Matheron, 1869 |
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Rhabdodon (meaning "fluted tooth") is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in Europe approximately 70–66 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous. It is similar in build to a very robust "hypsilophodont" (non-iguanodont ornithopod), though all modern phylogenetic analyses find this ("Hypsilophodontia/tidae") to be an unnatural grouping, and Rhabdodon to be a basal member of Iguanodontia.
Rhabdodon priscus is the type species; another species, described in 1991, is R. septimanicus (Buffetaut and Le Loeuff), however these have on occasion been considered to be the same animal. Rhabdodon lived in Spain, France, and on Haţeg Island in Romania, and remains of a very similar dinosaur (femur and limb bone fragments) are also known from the Czech Republic. The Czech material is only identifiable as Rhabdodontidae indet., but the French material, currently referred as R. sp, has been on occasion referred to as a potentially distinct species. It was large compared to its nearest relatives, and indeed one recent paper ( Ősi et al. (2012)) determined it is larger than the basal rhabdodontid status; from this they suggested that it actually experienced gigantism on the "mainland"; and not insular dwarfism as previous suggested.
Rhabodon was probably an important herbivore in Cretaceous Europe. Rhabdodon's predators may include the potentially dubious ceratosaur Tarascosaurus, and young may have been prey for Pyroraptor; thought adults where probably too big for either; as Tarascosaurus was around 2.5–3 m (7–10 ft), Pyroraptor around 2 m (6–7 ft), and Rhabdodon 6 m (18–20 ft).
Rhabdodon priscus is known from a specimen from the Marnes Rouges Inférieures Formation. The material of Rhabdodon priscus includes a dentary and many other postcranial remains. More specifically, it is known from the Bellevue layer, which has produced many vertebrate fossils. Even though it produced many vertebrates, the formation only has a scarce record of plants and invertebrates. The non-dinosaurian vertebrates consist of Lepisosteus, an indeterminate turtle, and a crocodile. Dinosaurian fauna from the Marnes Rouges Inférieures Formation include Ampelosaurus, an animal classified as Dromaeosauridae indet., and an indeterminate ankylosaur. The bird Gargantuavis philoinos, and dinosaur eggs have also been recovered.
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