History of discovery
O. C. Marsh named the genus for USNM 2135, a large worn tooth from what was then called the Potomac Formation. As ankylosaurians were by and large unknown at the time, he compared it to Diracodon (= Stegosaurus ) teeth. [2] It was not identified as an ankylosaurian until Walter Coombs assigned it to Nodosauridae in 1978. [3]
In 1998 Kenneth Carpenter and James Kirkland, in a review of North American Lower Cretaceous ankylosaurs, considered it tentatively valid as an unusually large nodosaurid, larger than all those described before. [4] Carpenter (2001) retained it as a valid nodosaurid, but did not employ it in his phylogenetic analysis. [5] Vickaryous et al. (2004), in a review of armored dinosaurs, considered it to be dubious without comment. [6] West and Tibert, however, followed this with a preliminary account of a morphometric study that found it to be a unique genus. [7]
Additional specimens
Carpenter and Kirkland (1998) listed 12 additional teeth from the same area as the holotype tooth, and tentatively added a robust tibia (USNM 9154) to the genus. They found the lack of armor found in the Arundel to be peculiar, but noted that fossils are rare in that formation anyway. [4] In 2018, three new ankylosaur teeth described from the Potomac Formation were assigned to Priconodon crassus based on their similarity to the holotype. [8] In 2023, large ankylosaur fossils (including a vertebra and a osteroderms) were announced to be found at Dinosaur Park by John-Paul Hodnett, [9] [10] which may potentially represent additional specimens of Priconodon. [11]
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