Prodeinodon Temporal range: Early Cretaceous,
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Genus: | †Prodeinodon Osborn, 1924 |
Type species | |
†Prodeinodon mongoliense Osborn, 1924
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Species | |
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Prodeinodon (meaning "before Deinodon") is a wastebasket taxon and a dubious genus of theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian to Aptian stages) from the Xinlong Formation in the Napai Basin of China and from the Oosh Formation of Mongolia.[1] Two species have been formally identified (with a third informal species), all three known only from tooth fragments, showing no diagnostic features, making them difficult to classify, though they may belong to a carnosaur. At least some of the referred species may represent basal carcharodontosaurid theropods similar to Acrocanthosaurus.[2]
The type species, P. mongoliense, was described by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1924.[3] A second species, P. kwangshiensis, was named in 1975.[4] "P. tibetensis" has not been formally described, and it may have belonged to its own, separate genus.[5]