''Rhinorex'' 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 ...

kritosaurin Saurolophinae is a subfamily of hadrosaurid dinosaurs. It has since the mid-20th century generally been called the Hadrosaurinae, a group of largely non-crested hadrosaurs related to the crested sub-family Lambeosaurinae. However, the name Hadro ...

hadrosaur Hadrosaurids (), or duck-billed dinosaurs, are members of the ornithischian family Hadrosauridae. This group is known as the duck-billed dinosaurs for the flat duck-bill appearance of the bones in their snouts. The ornithopod family, which inclu ...

from 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'', ...

Neslen Formation, in central

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

. Its exact placement in time is uncertain, though it probably dates to 75 million years ago and was discovered in

estuarine An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environmen ...

sediments. T.A. Gates & R. Scheetz (2014): A new saurolophine hadrosaurid (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) from the Campanian of Utah, North America
''Journal of Systematic Palaeontology''. doi: 10.1080/14772019.2014.950614 It is likely a close relative of ''

Gryposaurus ''Gryposaurus'' (meaning "hooked-nosed (Greek ''grypos'') lizard"; sometimes incorrectly translated as "griffin (Latin ''gryphus'') lizard") was a genus of duckbilled dinosaur that lived about 80 to 75 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceo ...

'', and indeed some have suggested that it falls within the genus ''Gryposaurus'', as the

phylogenetic analysis In biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that pro ...

indicates. It is found in a very similar time and place as ''Gryposaurus monumentensis'' and ''Gryposaurus'' sp. This would challenge the idea of provincialism in Late Cretaceous

Laramidia Laramidia was an island continent that existed during the Late Cretaceous period (99.6–66 Ma), when the Western Interior Seaway split the continent of North America in two. In the Mesozoic era, Laramidia was an island land mass separated from ...

n faunas. It may be that ''Rhinorex'' lived in more coastal environments than ''Gryposaurus''. 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 ...

specimen BYU 13258 is composed of a partial but mostly articulated skeleton, which includes the skull, the vertebral column and a partial pelvis.

Etymology

The

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

and only valid

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

known is ''Rhinorex condrupus''. The genus name is derived from the

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 ...

word "rhinos" which means "nose", and the Latin word "rex" which means "king." The specific name is derived from the Latin word "condo" which means "bury" and refers to the specimen being buried in rock and the Latin word "rupes" which means "cliffs" and is a reference to the fossil being discovered in the Book Cliffs of Utah.

References

Saurolophines Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Fossil taxa described in 2014 Paleontology in Utah Campanian genus first appearances Campanian genus extinctions Ornithischian genera {{ornithopod-stub

Etymology

See also

References