Maryland has no shortage of history, but one of its most fascinating chapters begins long before statehood, colonial settlements, or even human existence. It dates back between 95 and 130 million years, when enormous creatures roamed what is now Prince George’s County. One of those giants, the Astrodon johnstoni, eventually became Maryland’s official State Dinosaur in 1998.
The name “Astrodon” translates to “star tooth,” a nod to the fossil that started it all. The story begins in 1858, when Philip Tyson, Maryland’s State Agricultural Chemist, was surveying the region’s geology. While exploring the Arundel Clay near Muirkirk, he uncovered two unusual teeth, a discovery that would become one of the earliest dinosaur finds in the United States and the first ever identified in Maryland.
Tyson passed the fossils to Dr. Christopher Johnston, a local doctor and dentist. Using his dental expertise, Johnston sliced one of the teeth into thin sections and noticed a distinct star-shaped pattern at its core. In 1859, he published his findings in the American Journal of Dental Science, naming the species Astrodon in honor of that unmistakable starburst shape…