Polyonax
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| Polyonax mortuarius |
Polyonax (meaning "master over many") was a genus of ceratopsid dinosaur from the late Maastrichtian-age Upper Cretaceous Denver Formation of Colorado, USA. Founded upon poor remains, it is today regarded as a dubious name.
[edit] History
During an 1873 trip through the western US, paleontologist and naturalist Edward Drinker Cope collected some fragmentary dinosaurian material which he soon named as a new genus.[1] Catalogued today as AMNH 3950, the type material included three dorsal vertebrae, limb bone material, and what are now known to be horn cores, from a subadult individual.[2] Although it was briefly mixed up with hadrosaurs, and even considered to be a possible synonym of Trachodon,[3] it was recognized as a horned dinosaur in time for the first monograph on horned dinosaurs (1907), wherein it was regarded as based on indeterminate material.[4] Today, the name is used as little more than a historical curiosity, as it dates from a time before horned dinosaurs were known to exist.[5] The most recent review listed it as an indeterminate ceratopsid.[6]
It has sometimes been listed as a synonym of Agathaumas,[7] or Triceratops,[8] but the type remains are too poor for any sort of definite synonymization.
[edit] Paleobiology
As a ceratopsid, Polyonax would have been a large, quadrupedal herbivore, with horns and a neck frill.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ Cope, E.D. (1874). Report on the stratigraphy and Pliocene vertebrate paleontology of northern Colorado. Bulletin of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. 9:9-28.
- ^ Glut, D.F. (1997). "Polyonax", Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia. McFarland & Company, 723-724.. ISBN 0-89950-917-7.
- ^ Hatcher, J.B. (1902). The genus and species of the Trachodontidae (Hadrosauridae, Claosauridae) Marsh. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 14(1):377-386.
- ^ Hatcher, J.B., Marsh, O.C., and Lull, R.S. (1907). The Ceratopsia. Government Printing Office:Washington, D.C., 300 pp. ISBN 0405127138
- ^ Dodson, P. (1996). The Horned Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press:Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN 0-691-02882-6.
- ^ a b Dodson, P., Forster, C.A., and Sampson, S.D. (2004). Ceratopsidae. In: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria (second edition). University of California Press:Berkeley, 494-513. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
- ^ Romer, A.S. (1956). Osteology of the Reptiles. University of Chicago Press:Chicago, 1-772. ISBN 0-89464985-X.
- ^ Lambert, D., and the Diagram Group. (1990). The Dinosaur Data Book. Facts on File:Oxford, England, 320 p.
