Rhadinosaurus

Rhadinosaurus is a genus of nodosaurid ankylosaur first described in 1881 by Harry Govier Seeley, based on remains uncovered in Austria sometime between 1859 and 1870 by Edward Suess and Pawlowitsch. It was a herbivore that lived around 84.9 to 70.6 million years ago. The type species is R. alcimus.

Fossils

The Rhadinosaurus hypodigm consists of one tibia fragment, one limb fragment, two fibulae, and two dorsal vertebrae. The fibulae, which are clearly ankylosaurian, were originally identified as femora in the original description, but were eventually re-identified in a 2001 review of ankylosaur specimens from the Grünbach Formation. Sachs and Hornung re-identified one of the putative humeral bones as a tibial fragment of an rhabdodontid ornithopod dinosaur, referring it to Zalmoxes sp.

Taxonomy

Rhadinosaurus was initially classified as a dinosaur of uncertain position, and later considered an ornithosuchid as well as possible synonym of Doratodon, until Franz Nopcsa introduced the now popular theory that classifies it as a probable synonym of Struthiosaurus.