Completely pointless question about completely pointless genus

[Christopher Taylor <gerarus@westnet.com.au>]

Earlier today I quickly cobbled together a brief page on _Trachodon_ for
palaeos.org (http://www.palaeos.org/Trachodon), but in the course of
looking up info for it I came across a bit of a conundrum. Apparently
the original _Trachodon mirabilis_ material included both hadrosaur and
ceratopsid teeth when Leidy described it in 1856. In 1858 Leidy
recognised the error, and restricted the name _Trachodon_ to a
_ceratopsid_ tooth, referring the hadrosaur material to _Hadrosaurus_.
This would appear to be the valid lectotypification of the species, but
seems to be in contrast to every other author since who used it to refer
to a hadrosaur. _Trachodon_ would be a nomen dubium whichever way you
look at it, but I've just been wondering about the question out of
morbid curiosity and pure pedantry. Is _Trachodon_ an unidentifiable
hadrosaur, or an unidentifiable ceratopsid?

    Cheers,

        Christopher Taylor

Christopher Taylor
Dept of Environmental Biology
Curtin University of Technology
GPO Box U1987
Perth
WA 6845
Australia
 
http://catalogue-of-organisms.blogspot.com
 


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