Pteropelyx is a dubious

Nomen dubium

In zoological nomenclature, a nomen dubium is a scientific name that is of unknown or doubtful application...

 genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of Late Cretaceous

Late Cretaceous

The Late Cretaceous is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous period is divided in the geologic timescale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous series...

 hadrosaurid

Hadrosaurid

Hadrosaurids or duck-billed dinosaurs are members of the family Hadrosauridae, and include ornithopods such as Edmontosaurus and Parasaurolophus. They were common herbivores in the Upper Cretaceous Period of what are now Asia, Europe and North America. They are descendants of the Upper...

 dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

 from the Judith River Formation

Judith River Formation

The Judith River Formation is a fossil-bearing geologic formation in Montana, and is part of the Judith River Group. It dates to the upper Cretaceous, between 80 and 75 million years ago, corresponding to the "Judithian" land vertebrate age...

 of Montana

Montana

Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

, named by Edward Drinker Cope

Edward Drinker Cope

Edward Drinker Cope was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, as well as a noted herpetologist and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, Cope distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science; he published his first scientific paper at the age of nineteen...

 in 1889. Historically, several species were assigned to it, all based on extremely fragmentary remains, but there is no evidence to support these assignments. Most of these other species' remains likely belong to better-known hadrosaurs, such as Lambeosaurus

Lambeosaurus

Lambeosaurus is a genus of hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived about 76 to 75 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous Period of North America. This bipedal/quadrupedal, herbivorous dinosaur is known for its distinctive hollow cranial crest, which in the best-known species resembled a hatchet...

and Gryposaurus

Gryposaurus

Gryposaurus was a genus of duckbilled dinosaur that lived about 83 to 75.5 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous of North America...

. It is probable that the type material

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 of Pteropelyx, a skeleton lacking a skull, is from Corythosaurus

Corythosaurus

Corythosaurus is a genus of duck-billed dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Period, about 77-76.5 million years ago. It lived in what is now North America...

(making Pteropelyx its senior synonym) (Brett-Surman, 1989), but the lack of a skull makes such a synonymy impossible to determine with certainty.

External links

• Pteropelyx in The Dinosaur Encyclopaedia at Dino Russ's Lair