Outline: a typical ornithopod
Rhabdodon
"fluted tooth"
- Lived
- 84 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 4 m (13 ft)
- Group
- Ornithopods, Rhabdodontidae
- Found in
- France and Spain
- Named by
- Matheron 1869
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical ornithopod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
75 million years ago
Also reported from Austria and Romania.
Field notes
About Rhabdodon
What it was like
Rhabdodon was a plant eater about 4 meters (13 feet) long that walked on two legs. It had a sturdy body, a deep beak and ridged teeth for chewing tough plants.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous, on islands in what is now France and Spain. It shared that land with the sauropod Ampelosaurus, the armored Struthiosaurus and the abelisaur Arcovenator. It is one of the most common dinosaurs found in the latest Cretaceous rocks of southern France.
How it was found
Matheron named Rhabdodon in 1869. It is now known from dozens of finds, and it gives its name to the rhabdodontids, a family found only in Europe.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Sources: WikidataNamed in: P. Matheron. 1869. Notice sur les reptiles fossiles des dépôts fluvio-lacustres crétacés du bassin à lignite de Fuveau [Notice on the fossil reptiles from the Cretaceous fluvio-lacustrine deposits of the lignitic Fuveau Basin]. Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, et Arts de Marseille 1868–1869:345-379