Lophorhothon

Lophorhothon (Langston, 1960) is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, the first genus of dinosaur discovered in Alabama, in the United States.

Lophorhothon Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, ~
Skull
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Suborder:	†Ornithopoda
Clade:	†Hadrosauromorpha
Genus:	†Lophorhothon Langston, 1960
Type species
†Lophorhothon atopus Langston, 1960

Discovery and naming

Remains of this small, poorly known perhaps saurolophine dinosaur were first discovered during the 1940s, from extensive erosional outcrops of the lower unnamed member of the Mooreville Chalk Formation in Dallas County, west of the town of Selma, Alabama.

Taxonomic status

A number of workers have questioned the validity of L. atopus. It may have been a premature Prosaurolophus.

Holotype

The holotype specimen was likely washed out to sea by a river, where it eventually sank and was buried in the silty carbonate sediments of Alabama.

Sources

• Horner, J. R., Weishampel, D. B., and Forster, C. A. 2004. Chapter Twenty: Hadrosauridae. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.
• Lamb, J. P. 1998. Lophorothon, an iguanodontian, not a hadrosaur. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 18 (3 Abstracts): 59A.
• Langston, W. 1960. The vertebrate fauna of the Selma Formation of Alabama, part VI: the dinosaurs. Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs 3(5): 315–359.
• Schwimmer, D. R. 1997. Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in eastern USA: a taphonomic and biogeographic model of occurrences, p. 203–211. In D. L. Wolberg, E. Stump, and G. D. Rosenberg (eds.), Dinofest International. The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
• Thurmond, J. T. and Jones, D. E. 1981. Fossil vertebrates of Alabama. University of Alabama Press.