biology

Uteodon

Uteodon is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Uteodon rather than just read about it. In short: Uteodon (meaning "Ute tooth") is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It is a basal iguanodontian which lived during the late Jurassic period (Tithonian age) in what is now Uintah County, Utah.

Key takeaways

Uteodon belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Uteodon to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Uteodon from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Uteodon (meaning "Ute tooth") is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It is a basal iguanodontian which lived during the late Jurassic period (Tithonian age) in what is now Uintah County, Utah. It is known from the middle of the Brushy Basin Member, Morrison Formation. The genus was named by Andrew T. McDonald in 2011 and the type species is U. aphanoecetes.

History The holotype specimen, CM 11337 (a virtually complete skeleton minus the skull and tail), was assigned to Camptosaurus medius (Marsh, 1894) by Charles W. Gilmore in 1925. When C. medius was synonymised with Camptosaurus dispar in 1980, the holotype was seen to probably represent a new, then unnamed, species of Camptosaurus. The species Camptosaurus aphanoecetes was first described in 2008 by Carpenter and Wilson. In 2011, it was assigned to the new genus Uteodon. In 2015, the Uteodon braincase was referred to Dryosaurus, and Uteodon and Cumnoria were synonymized with Camptosaurus, as C. aphanoectes and C. prestwichii, respectively.

Description

The type specimen of Uteodon was 3.75 metres (12.3 ft) in length but was not fully grown, Uteodon would have grown up to around 6 metres (20 ft) long and would probably have weighed no more than around 400 kilograms (880 lb).

Paleoecology

Provenance and occurrence

The single known specimen of Uteodon, CM 11337, was found in the Carnegie Quarry/Douglass Quarry of the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation, Utah. The rocks it was found in were medium-grained, coarse sandstone that was deposited during the Tithonian and Kimmeridgian stages of the Late Jurassic period, approximately 150.91 to 150.04 million years ago.

Fauna and habitat Studies suggest that the paleoenvironment of this section of the Morrison Formation included rivers that flowed from the west into a basin that contained a giant, saline alkaline lake and there were extensive wetlands in the vicinity. The Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry of western Colorado yields one of the most diverse Upper Jurassic vertebrate assemblages in the world. The Dry Mesa Quarry has produced the remains of the sauropods Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Barosaurus, Supersaurus, and Camarasaurus, the ornithopods Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus, and the theropods Allosaurus, Torvosaurus. Tanycolagreus, Koparion, Stokesosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Ornitholestes, as well as Nanosaurus, Gargoyleosaurus, and Stegosaurus. The flora of the period has been revealed by fossils of green algae, fungi, mosses, horsetails, ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and several families of conifers. Animal fossils discovered include bivalves, snails, ray-finned fishes, frogs, salamanders, amphibians, turtles, sphenodonts, lizards, terrestrial (like Hoplosuchus) and aquatic crocodylomorphs, cotylosaurs, several species of pterosaurs like Harpactognathus, and early mammals, multituberculates, symmetrodonts, and triconodonts.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Uteodon

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Uteodon claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Uteodon before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Uteodon ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Uteodon

In research: Uteodon appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Uteodon in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Uteodon is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Ankylopollexia, Dinosaur genera, Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Uteodon outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Uteodon in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Uteodon means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Uteodon out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Uteodon in simple terms?

Why does Uteodon matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Uteodon?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Uteodon.