Echinodon

prickly tooth (or hedgehog tooth)

• echinos · Greek · hedgehog, spiny or prickly
• odon · Greek · tooth

The name combines the Greek "echinos" (hedgehog, spiny) with "odon" (tooth), giving "prickly tooth". Richard Owen chose it in 1861 for the small, sharply pointed teeth in the jaw fragments he described. He first thought these jaw fragments belonged to a lizard.

Named by

Owen

Year named

1861

Period

Early Cretaceous

Stage

Berriasian

Found in

Lulworth Formation, Purbeck Group, Durlston Bay near Swanage, Dorset, England

Small, early-branching ornithischian dinosaur. The type species is E. becklesii. It is often placed among the heterodontosaurids, but some studies treat it as a basal ornithischian or a relative of early ceratopsians, so its exact position is debated.