Uteodon

The holotype specimen, CM 11337 (a virtually complete skeleton minus the skull and tail), was assigned to Camptosaurus medius (Marsh, 1894Marsh, O, C. (1894). The typical Ornithopoda of the American Jurassic. American Journal of Science, 48, 85–90.) by Charles W. Gilmore in 1925.{{cite journal |last1=Gilmore |first1=C.W. |title=Osteology of ornithopodous dinosaurs from the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah |journal=Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum |date=1925 |volume=10 |pages=385–410|doi=10.5962/p.234845 |doi-access=free }} When C. medius was synonymised with Camptosaurus dispar in 1980,G.S. Paul (2010) "The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs". (Page 284). the holotype was seen to probably represent a new, then unnamed, species of Camptosaurus.Dodson, P. (1980). Comparative osteology of the American ornithopods Camptosaurus and Tenontosaurus. Mémoires de la Société géologique de France 139:81–85. The species Camptosaurus aphanoecetes was first described in 2008 by Carpenter and Wilson.{{Cite journal | last1 = Carpenter | first1 = K. | last2 = Wilson | first2 = Y. | title = A New Species of Camptosaurus (Ornithopoda: Dinosauria) from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, and a Biomechanical Analysis of Its Forelimb | journal = Annals of Carnegie Museum | volume = 76 | issue = 4 | pages = 227 | year = 2008 | doi = 10.2992/0097-4463(2008)76[227:ANSOCO]2.0.CO;2 }} In 2011, it was assigned to the new genus Uteodon. In 2015, the Uteodon braincase was referred to Dryosaurus, and Uteodon and Cumnoria were synonymized with Camptosaurus, as C. aphanoectes and C. prestwichii, respectively.{{Cite journal|last1=Carpenter|first1=Kenneth|last2=Lamanna|first2=Matthew C.|date=2015|title=The Braincase Assigned to the Ornithopod Dinosaur Uteodon McDonald, 2011, Reassigned to Dryosaurus Marsh, 1894: Implications for Iguanodontian Morphology and Taxonomy|url=https://bioone.org/journals/annals-of-carnegie-museum/volume-83/issue-2/007.083.0201/The-Braincase-Assigned-to-the-Ornithopod-Dinosaur-Uteodon-McDonald-2011/10.2992/007.083.0201.full|journal=Annals of Carnegie Museum|volume=83|issue=2|pages=149–165|doi=10.2992/007.083.0201|issn=0097-4463}}

File:Uteodon Scale.svg

Based on the holotype and the related genus Camptosaurus, when fully grown, Uteodon would have grown up to around {{convert|6|m|ft}} long and would probably have weighed no more than around {{convert|400|kg|lbs}}, although according to Hartman (2013), Uteodon could have been as small as around {{convert|2.5|m|ft}} long.{{cite web|title=Uteodon skeletal reconstruction (2013)|url=https://www.skeletaldrawing.com/ornithiscians/uteodon|publisher=Dr. Scott Hartman's Skeletal Drawing|access-date=15 May 2021}}

The single known specimen of Uteodon, CM 11337, was found in the Dry Mesa Quarry/Douglass Quarry of the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, Utah. The rocks it was found in were medium-grained, coarse sandstone that was deposited during the Tithonian and Kimmeridgian stages of the Late Jurassic period, approximately 153 to 148 million years ago.Jensen, J. A. and Ostrom, J. H. (1977). A second Jurassic pterosaur from North America. Journal of Paleontology 51(4):867–870

File:Uteodon reconstruction raingerr.png of Uteodon]]

Studies suggest that the paleoenvironment of this section of the Morrison Formation included rivers that flowed from the west into a basin that contained a giant, saline alkaline lake and there were extensive wetlands in the vicinity. The Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry of western Colorado yields one of the most diverse Upper Jurassic vertebrate assemblages in the world.Richmond, D.R. and Morris, T.H., (1999), Stratigraphy and cataclysmic deposition of the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry, Mesa County, Colorado, in Carpenter, K., Kirkland, J., and Chure, D., eds., The Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation: An Interdisciplinary Study, Modern Geology v. 22, no. 1-4, pp. 121–143. The Dry Mesa Quarry has produced the remains of the sauropods Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Barosaurus, Supersaurus, and Camarasaurus, the ornithopods Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus, and the theropods Allosaurus, Torvosaurus. Tanycolagreus, Koparion, Stokesosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Ornitholestes, as well as Nanosaurus, Gargoyleosaurus, and Stegosaurus.{{cite book |last=Chure |first=Daniel J. |author2=Litwin, Ron |author3=Hasiotis, Stephen T. |author4=Evanoff, Emmett |author5= Carpenter, Kenneth |year=2006 |chapter=The fauna and flora of the Morrison Formation: 2006 |editor=Foster, John R. |editor2=Lucas, Spencer G. |title=Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation |series=New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, 36 |publisher=New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science |location=Albuquerque, New Mexico |pages=233–248}}

The flora of the period has been revealed by fossils of green algae, fungi, mosses, horsetails, ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and several families of conifers. Animal fossils discovered include bivalves, snails, ray-finned fishes, frogs, salamanders, amphibians, turtles, sphenodonts, lizards, terrestrial (like Hoplosuchus) and aquatic crocodylomorphs, cotylosaurs, several species of pterosaurs like Harpactognathus, and early mammals, multituberculates, symmetrodonts, and triconodonts.

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{{Ornithopoda|O.}}

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Category:Iguanodontia

Category:Fossil taxa described in 2011

Category:Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation

Category:Paleontology in Utah

Category:Ornithischian genera

Category:Ornithopods of North America

Category:Jurassic ornithopods

Category:Tithonian genera