El primer diente de ornitópodo del Jurásico Superior de España (Asturias)

Abstract

One isolated ornithopod dinosaur tooth from the Principality of Asturias (northern Spain) is studied in this work. It has been found in the Aranzón cliffs (Villaviciosa municipality), in an outcrop of the deltaic Lastres Formation (Kimmeridgian). It is a terminally resorbed tooth, identified by its ornamentation and resorption facets as a left maxillary crown. Its morphology, with a prominent primary ridge distally displaced in labial view, is similar to that of maxillary teeth of Early Cretaceous basal iguanodontoids, but also to that of the Late Jurassic camptosaurids Camptosaurus dispar from North America and Camptosaurus prestwichii and Draconyx loureiroi from Europe. It recalls also the Latejurassic dryosaurid Dryosaurus lettowvorbecki from Tanzania, so it is assigned to Dryomorpha indet. It represents the first ornithopod tooth described from the Jurassic of Spain