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Diplotomodon (meaning "double cutting tooth") Leidy, 1868 was a dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of New Jersey. It is only known from a single tooth, and may in fact be Dryptosaurus.

Description[]

Diplomotodon is known from holotype ANSP 9680 from near Mullica Hill in Navesink or Hornerstown Formation Maastrichtian-aged marine deposits. Joseph Leidy (1865) originally named it Tomodon, unaware of the genus of snake already occupying that name. After renaming it Diplomotodon, he suggested it was a fish. The holotype tooth is 3 inches long, is broad, flat and symmetrical and is non-recurved. Edward Drinker Cope (1870) concluded it was not a fish, but a carnivorous dinosaur. Ralph Molnar (1990) suggested it was synonymous with Dryptosaurus. Onwards it was considered a dinosaur. One strange conclusion was by Halsey Wilkinson Miller (1955), who placed it in Mosasauridae. David Weishampel (2006) placed it as tetanurae indeterminate. Today, it is generally known as a nomen dubium.

JPInstitute.com Description[]

Diplotomodon was one of the first dinosaurs discovered in North America, but for nearly a hundred years its remains were thought to belong to a fish! It is hard to believe that a dinosaur and a fish could be confused with each other but only a single tooth of this creature has been found. From this one piece of evidence we know that it was a medium sized meat-eater that lived in what is now New Jersey at the end of the age of dinosaurs.

Discovered in 1865, the single tooth upon which this genus was founded was at first thought to belong to a plesiosaur. Shortly after, it was classified as a fish and it remained a fish until 1952 when reexamination determined it to belong to a theropod, most likely a megalosaur. Most recently, it has been suggested that this is the tooth of Dryptosaurusand that the genus Diplotomodon is not valid.

Links[]

https://web.archive.org/web/20031006214343fw_/http://www.jpinstitute.com/dinopedia/dinocards/dc_diplot.html

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