''Lycorhinus'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

heterodontosaurid Heterodontosauridae is a family of ornithischian dinosaurs that were likely among the most basal (primitive) members of the group. Their phylogenetic placement is uncertain but they are most commonly found to be primitive, outside of the group ...

ornithischia Ornithischia () is an extinct order of mainly herbivorous dinosaurs characterized by a pelvic structure superficially similar to that of birds. The name ''Ornithischia'', or "bird-hipped", reflects this similarity and is derived from the Greek s ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

from the

Early Jurassic The Early Jurassic Epoch (geology), Epoch (in chronostratigraphy corresponding to the Lower Jurassic series (stratigraphy), Series) is the earliest of three epochs of the Jurassic Period. The Early Jurassic starts immediately after the Triassic-J ...

(

Hettangian The Hettangian is the earliest age and lowest stage of the Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (My ...

Sinemurian In the geologic timescale, the Sinemurian is an age and stage in the Early or Lower Jurassic Epoch or Series. It spans the time between 199.3 ± 2 Ma and 190.8 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Sinemurian is preceded by the Hettangian and is ...

ages) strata of the

Elliot Formation The Elliot Formation is a geological formation and forms part of the Stormberg Group, the uppermost geological Stratigraphic unit, group that comprises the greater Karoo Supergroup. Outcrops of the Elliot Formation have been found in the northern ...

located in the

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Description

''Lycorhinus'', including the remains described by Gow in 1975 as ''Lanasaurus'', is a small ( in length) herbivorous dinosaur despite the long canines it sported in its jaws.

History of discovery

The fossil material consists of

dentaries In anatomy, the mandible, lower jaw or jawbone is the largest, strongest and lowest bone in the human facial skeleton. It forms the lower jaw and holds the lower teeth in place. The mandible sits beneath the maxilla. It is the only movable bone ...

and

maxilla The maxilla (plural: ''maxillae'' ) in vertebrates is the upper fixed (not fixed in Neopterygii) bone of the jaw formed from the fusion of two maxillary bones. In humans, the upper jaw includes the hard palate in the front of the mouth. The t ...

e, hence the characters mentioned by the name ''Lycorhinus angustidens'' that

Sidney H. Haughton Sidney Henry Haughton FRS (7 May 1888 – 24 May 1982) was an English-born South African paleontologist and geologist best known for his description of the sauropodomorph dinosaur '' Melanorosaurus'' in 1924, and his work on the geology of ...

attributed to the remains in 1924, where the generic name means "

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly u ...

snout", as it was at first misidentified as a

cynodont The cynodonts () (clade Cynodontia) are a clade of eutheriodont therapsids that first appeared in the Late Permian (approximately 260 mya), and extensively diversified after the Permian–Triassic extinction event. Cynodonts had a wide variety ...

, and the specific descriptor means "constricted tooth". The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

, SAM 3606, consists of a mandible found by Dr M. Ricono. Three other species of ''Lycorhinus'' have been named. ''Lycorhinus parvidens'' was created by

Robert Broom Robert Broom FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow. From 1903 to 1910, he ...

and ''Lycorhinus tucki'' by

Richard Anthony Thulborn Richard Anthony (Tony) Thulborn is a British paleontologist. He is recognized as an expert in dinosaur tracks, and as one of the most productive paleontologists of his time. In 1982, Thulborn debunked the purported plesiosaur embryos discovered by ...

in 1970 renaming ''

Heterodontosaurus ''Heterodontosaurus'' is a genus of heterodontosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic, 200–190 million years ago. Its only known member species, ''Heterodontosaurus tucki'', was named in 1962 based on a skull discovered in South ...

tucki'', but these have failed to find recognition. ''Lycorhinus consors'', named by Thulborn in 1974, was renamed ''

Abrictosaurus ''Abrictosaurus'' (; "wakeful lizard") is a genus of heterodontosaurid dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic in what is now in parts of southern Africa such as Lesotho and South Africa. It was a bipedal herbivore or omnivore and was o ...

'' by

James Hopson James Allen Hopson (born 1935) is an American paleontologist and professor (now retired) at the University of Chicago. His work has focused on the evolution of the synapsids (a group of amniotes that includes the mammals), and has been focused ...

in 1975.

''Lanasaurus''

The type and only species of ''Lanasaurus'' is ''L. scalpridens'', described by Christopher Gow in 1975 from the same horizon as ''Lycorhinus''. The generic name is derived from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''lana'', "wool" and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''saurus'', "lizard", and honours Professor

Alfred Walter Crompton Alfred Walter "Fuzz" Crompton (born 21 February 1927 in Durban) is a South African paleontologist and zoologist. Crompton studied at the University of Stellenbosch and obtained a bachelor's degree in 1947 and a masters in 1949, in zoology. He c ...

, nicknamed "Fuzz" because of his woolly hair. The specific name is derived from Latin ''scalprum'', "chisel", and ''dens'', "tooth". It is based on a partial upper jaw bone, the

BP/1/4244, found in the Upper

of Free State. The teeth show a typical replacement pattern in which during each replacement cycle every third tooth is renewed. Gow himself in 1990 concluded that the holotype of ''Lanasaurus'' was actually a specimen of ''Lycorhinus angustidens''. This has been commonly accepted since.Norman, D.B., Sues, H.D., Witmer, L.M. and Coria, R.A.. (2004). "Basal Ornithopoda". In D. B. Weishampel, H. Osmólska, and P. Dodson (eds.), ''The Dinosauria'' (2nd edition). University of California Press, Berkeley 393-412

Classification

''L. angustidens'' is thought to be allied to ''Heterodontosaurus''. Only in 1962

recognised it was an ornithischian dinosaur. Thulborn in 1971 created a separate LycorhinidaeR.A. Thulborn, 1971, "Origins and evolution of ornithischian dinosaurs", ''Nature'' 234(5324): 75-78 but this group was in 1972 equated with

Heterodontosauridae Heterodontosauridae is a family of ornithischian dinosaurs that were likely among the most basal (primitive) members of the group. Their phylogenetic placement is uncertain but they are most commonly found to be primitive, outside of the group ...

Peter Galton Peter Malcolm Galton (born 14 March 1942 in London) is a British vertebrate paleontologist who has to date written or co-written about 190 papers in scientific journals or chapters in paleontology textbooks, especially on ornithischian and prosaur ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2018521 Heterodontosaurids Hettangian life Pliensbachian life Sinemurian life Early Jurassic dinosaurs of Africa Jurassic South Africa Fossils of South Africa Fossil taxa described in 1924 Taxa named by Sidney H. Haughton Ornithischian genera