''Crichtonsaurus'' (meaning "Crichton's lizard") is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of herbivorous ankylosaurid

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 ...

that lived during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', ...

in what is now China. It was named after

Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavily feature tech ...

, the author of the dinosaur novel ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later also referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton and centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of cloned dinosaurs. It began in 1990 whe ...

''.

History

The first fossils of the genus were discovered in 1999 in the Sunjiawan Formation of Xiafuxiang, near

Beipiao Beipiao () is a city in Chaoyang prefecture, Liaoning province, in Northeast China. It has a population of 202,807. The main industry in the area is coal mining. With vertical shafts of almost 1000m, these are some of the deepest coal mines in ...

Liaoning Province Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...

, China. It was named and described by Dong Zhiming of the

Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP; ) of China is a research institution and collections repository for fossils, including many dinosaur and pterosaur specimens (many from the Yixian Formation). As its name sugges ...

of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Repub ...

in 2002. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

is ''Crichtonsaurus bohlini''. The generic name is in honor of

, American author whose novels include ''

'', '' The Andromeda Strain'' and others. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours Birger Bohlin, a Swedish paleontologist who during the 1930s took part in several paleontological expeditions to China. He described numerous Chinese ankylosaurs. As well as his work on dinosaurs and prehistoric

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fu ...

, Bohlin was part of the group that established the existence of

Peking Man Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'') is a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' which inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave of northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and the Zhoukoudian Cave has ...

. 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 seve ...

, IVPP V12745, was found in a layer of the Sunjiawan Formation dating from the Cenomanian-

Turonian The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous Epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 93.9 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.8 ± 1 Ma (million years ago). The Turonian is preceded ...

. It consists of a left lower jaw with three preserved teeth. Additionally, two specimens have been referred: IVPP V12746, consisting of two neck vertebrae and a back vertebra; and LPM 101, a partial postcranial skeleton including four sacral vertebrae, seven tail vertebrae. a shoulder blade, a coracoid, a humerus, a thighbone, foot bones, a cervical halfring and osteoderms. In 2014, Victoria Arbour pointed out that the referral of the additional specimens could not be justified because of a lack of overlapping material. She also failed to find any unique traits in the holotype itself, concluding that ''Crichtonsaurus bohlini'' was a ''

nomen dubium In binomial nomenclature, a ''nomen dubium'' (Latin for "doubtful name", plural ''nomina dubia'') is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application. Zoology In case of a ''nomen dubium'' it may be impossible to determine whether a s ...

''.Arbour, Victoria Megan, 2014, ''Systematics, evolution, and biogeography of the ankylosaurid dinosaurs''. Ph.D thesis, University of Alberta The specimens referred to ''Crichtonsaurus bohlini'' are rather small. In 2010, Gregory S. Paul estimated their body length at 3.5 metres, their weight at half a tonne.Paul, G.S., 2010, ''The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs'', Princeton University Press p. 231 ''Crichtonsaurus bohlini'' was placed in the

Ankylosauridae Ankylosauridae () is a family of armored dinosaurs within Ankylosauria, and is the sister group to Nodosauridae. The oldest known Ankylosaurids date to around 122 million years ago and went extinct 66 million years ago during the Cretaceous–P ...

and was a likely member of the

Ankylosaurinae Ankylosaurinae is a subfamily of ankylosaurid dinosaurs, existing from the Early Cretaceous about 105 million years ago until the end of the Late Cretaceous, about 66 mya. Many genera are included in the clade, such as '' Ankylosaurus'', '' Pin ...

Misassigned species

A second species, ''Crichtonsaurus benxiensis'', was named by Lü Junchang, Ji Qiang, Gao Yubo and Li Zhixin in 2007. The specific name refers to the

Benxi Geological Museum Benxi (, ) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, south-southeast of the provincial capital Shenyang. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,326,018 (1,709,538 in 2010) whom 809,65 ...

. The holotype, BXGMV0012, was discovered in the same early

-age ( Cenomanian-

) Sunjiawan Formation of

, Liaoning, as the type species. It consists of a complete skull. Additionally, specimen BXGMV0012-1 has been referred, a partial skeleton lacking the skull, found at the same location. Also, according to Arbour, a skeleton displayed at the Sihetun Fossil Museum under the name of ''C. bohlini'', probably belongs to ''C. benxiensis''. Paul suggested ''C. benxiensis'' were a junior synonym of ''C. bohlini''. However, apart from indicating ''C. bohlini'' as a dubious species to which no other species can be justifiably seen as identical, Arbour established diagnostic differences between the shoulder blades of BXGMV0012-1 and LPM 101, so two ankylosaurid taxa seem to be present in the formation. Based upon her conclusion that ''C. bohlini'' was a ''nomen dubium'', Arbour suggested a new generic name for the second species: '' Crichtonpelta'', for the time being an invalid ''nomen ex dissertatione''. However, in 2015, the name was validly published and it was officially separated from the dubious type species ''C. bohlini''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q135561 Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Ankylosaurids Nomina dubia Fossil taxa described in 2002 Taxa named by Dong Zhiming Ornithischian genera

History

Misassigned species

See also

References