Paronychodon teeth are NOT homalocephalid fangs - killing an internet rumor

[Michael Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

While researching Paronychodon for my website, I came across a rumor started 
on the DML by Olshevsky, and decided I might as well kill it on the DML as 
well.

An odd possibility was suggested by Olshevsky (DML, 1997), that some 
Paronychodon specimens, including the holotype, may be anterior dentary 
fangs of "homalocephalid" pachycephalosaurs (cf. Goyocephale) . However, the 
dentary fangs of Goyocephale are serrated distally, polygonal in section, 
have a bulbous root, and seem to only possess one lingual ridge. 
Premaxillary teeth of Goyocephale are somewhat similar to type B teeth of 
Paronychodon, but lack ridges, are much less labiolingually compressed, and 
have distal serrations apically. Stegoceras teeth are even less similar, 
being serrated both mesially and distally with no ridges. The supposed 
Middle Jurassic pachycephalosaur Ferganocephale has vertical enamel ridges 
on the base of one side and lacks serrations, but is otherwise highly 
distinct, being unrecurved, short and uncompressed labiolingually, with a 
prominent cingulum. The ridges radiate from the base instead of the apex and 
the entire tooth shape is distinctively ornithischian. Besides the 
anatomical differences, stratigraphically Paronychodon and "homalocephalids" 
are also mismatched, with the latter only known from the 
Campanian-Maastrichtian of Mongolia and perhaps China. The utter lack of 
"homalocephalids" in well sampled strata like the Dinosaur Park Formation is 
particularily telling. Also notable is that each "homalocephalid" only had 
eight fang-like teeth, but had around sixty-six leaf-shaped teeth. So we 
would expect more pachycephalosaur teeth by a factor of 8:1 or so, but 
Baszio (1997) showed this is not the case. For instance, he recorded 12 
Paronychodon teeth from the Dinosaur Park Formation, and only 16 
pachycephalosaur teeth. Similarly, Baszio recorded 84 Paronychodon teeth 
from the Milk River Formation, but only 16 pachycephalosaur teeth. Finally, 
Zinke and Rauhut (1994) described paronychodontid teeth within a theropod 
dentary fragment, though these differ from Paronychodon in some details.

References- Zinke and Rauhut, 1994. Small theropods (Dinosauria, Saurischia) 
from the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous of the Iberian Peninsula. 
Berliner geowiss. Abh.. E 13, 163-177.
http://dml.cmnh.org/1997Dec/msg00058.html
Baszio, 1997. Investigations on Canadian dinosaurs: systematic palaeontology 
of isolated dinosaur teeth from the Latest Cretaceous of south Alberta, 
Canada. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg. 196, 33-77.

Mickey Mortimer
http://home.myuw.net/eoraptor/Home.html