In Depth
Craspedodon is what is known as a tooth taxon in that the entire genus has been described upon the basis of only a few teeth. When first described by Louis Dollo in 1883, he noted that the teeth were similar to those of Iguanodon, and so for well over a hundred years Craspedodon had been established as a possible (though dubious) iguanodont dinosaur.
A new study of these teeth in 2007 by Godefroit and Lambert however has raised a startling new theory. When they studied these teeth, they compared to other plant eating dinosaurs and found them to be most similar to neoceratopsian dinosaurs. If this analysis is correct, then Craspedodon would actually be the first official record of a ceratopsian dinosaur living in Europe, an area that had long been presumed to have an absence of ceratopsian dinosaurs which traditionally have been associated with Far East Asia and North America.
Further Reading
- Note sur les restes de dinosauriens rencontr�s dans le Cr�tac� sup�rieur de la Belgique [Note on the dinosaur remains found in the Upper Cretaceous of Belgium]. - Bulletin du Mus�e Royal d’Histoire Naturelle de Belgique 2:205-221. - Louis Dollo - 1883. - A re-appraisal of Craspedodon lonzeensis Dollo, 1883 from the Upper Cretaceous of Belgium: the first record of a neoceratopsian dinosaur in Europe?”. - Bulletin de l’Institut royal des Sciences naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la Terre 77: 83–93. - Pascal Godefroit & Olivier Lambert - 2007.
