| Eobasileus Temporal range: Bridgerian to Uintan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| A skull from the Field Museum | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | † Dinocerata |
| Family: | † Uintatheriidae |
| Subfamily: | † Uintatheriinae |
| Genus: | † Eobasileus Cope, 1872 |
| Species: | †E. cornutus |
| Binomial name | |
| †Eobasileus cornutus Cope, 1872 | |
| Synonyms | |
Uintatherium cornutus | |
Eobasileus cornutus ("horned dawn-king" [1] [lower-alpha 1] ) was a prehistoric species of dinocerate mammal.
With a skull about 1 meter (3.3 ft) in length, and standing some 2.1 metres (6.9 ft) tall at the shoulder, [3] with a weight estimated to be around 2,500 kilograms (5,500 lb), [4] Eobasileus was the largest uintathere. It looked much like the related Uintatherium . Like Uintatherium, it had three pairs of blunt horns on its skull, possibly covered with skin like the ossicones of a giraffe. The frontal pair may have been composed of keratin, like the horn(s) of a rhinoceros. Eobasileus also had a pair of tusks shielded by bony protrusions of the lower jaw. [5]
A dispute over Eobasileus specifically and the uintatheres more generally helped to spark the Bone Wars between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. [6] Cope, Marsh, and Joseph Leidy independently discovered specimens from related species—though Cope and Marsh believed they had each discovered the same species—in the Fort Bridger area, leading to disputes over naming rights for the animals and a series of increasingly hostile letters to various scientific journals. [7] In 1873, for example, Marsh wrote "Cope has endeavored to secure priority by sharp practice, and failed…Prof. Cope's errors will continue to invite correction, but these, like his blunders, are hydra-headed, and life is really too short to spend valuable time in such an ungracious task, especially as in the present case Prof. Cope has not even returned thanks for the correction of nearly half a hundred errors…" [8] The American Naturalist declined to print this letter as a scientific article, but did publish it as an appendix; Marsh paid for its inclusion in the journal. [9]
Allosaurus is an extinct genus of large carnosaurian theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 145 million years ago during the Late Jurassic period. The name "Allosaurus" means "different lizard", alluding to its unique concave vertebrae. It is derived from the Greek words ἄλλος and σαῦρος. The first fossil remains that could definitively be ascribed to this genus were described in 1877 by famed paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh. As one of the first well-known theropod dinosaurs, it has long attracted attention outside of paleontological circles.
Amblypoda was a taxonomic hypothesis uniting a group of extinct, herbivorous mammals. They were considered a suborder of the primitive ungulate mammals and have since been shown to represent a polyphyletic group.
Othniel Charles Marsh was an American professor of paleontology at Yale College and president of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new species and theories on the origins of birds.
Edward Drinker Cope was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, he distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science, publishing his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations.
Dryosaurus is a genus of an ornithopod dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic period. It was an iguanodont. Fossils have been found in the western United States and were first discovered in the late 19th century. Valdosaurus canaliculatus and Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki were both formerly considered to represent species of Dryosaurus.
Paraceratherium is an extinct genus of hornless rhinocerotoids belonging to the family Paraceratheriidae. It is one of the largest terrestrial mammals that has ever existed and lived from the early to late Oligocene epoch. The first fossils were discovered in what is now Pakistan, and remains have been found across Eurasia between China and the Balkans. Paraceratherium means "near the hornless beast", in reference to Aceratherium, the genus in which the type species P. bugtiense was originally placed.
Lystrosaurus is an extinct genus of herbivorous dicynodont therapsids from the late Permian and Early Triassic epochs. It lived in what is now Antarctica, India, China, Mongolia, European Russia and South Africa. Four to six species are currently recognized, although from the 1930s to 1970s the number of species was thought to be much higher. They ranged in size from that of a small dog to 8 feet long.
Uintatherium is an extinct genus of herbivorous mammal that lived during the Eocene epoch. Two species are currently recognized: U. anceps from the United States during the Early to Middle Eocene and U. insperatus of Middle to Late Eocene China.
Edaphosaurus is a genus of extinct edaphosaurid synapsids that lived in what is now North America and Europe around 303.4 to 272.5 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous to Early Permian. American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope first described Edaphosaurus in 1882, naming it for the "dental pavement" on both the upper and lower jaws, from the Greek edaphos έδαφος and σαῦρος ("lizard").
Agathaumas is a dubious genus of a large ceratopsid dinosaur that lived in Wyoming during the Late Cretaceous. The name comes from Ancient Greek: αγαν - 'much' and θαυμα - 'wonder'. It is estimated to have been 15 metres (49 ft) long and weighed 17.5 tonnes, and was seen as the largest land animal known at the time of its discovery.
Monoclonius is an extinct genus of herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur found in the Late Cretaceous layers of the Judith River Formation in Montana, United States, and the uppermost rock layers of the Dinosaur Park Formation in Alberta, Canada dated to between 75 and 74.6 million years ago.
Brontosaurus is a genus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaur that lived in present-day United States during the Late Jurassic period. It was described by American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh in 1879, the type species being dubbed B. excelsus, based on a partial skeleton lacking a skull found in Como Bluff, Wyoming. In subsequent years, two more species of Brontosaurus were named: B. parvus in 1902 and B. yahnahpin in 1994. Brontosaurus lived about 156 to 146 million years ago (mya) during the Kimmeridgian and Tithonian ages in the Morrison Formation of what is now Utah and Wyoming. For decades, the animal was thought to have been a taxonomic synonym of its close relative Apatosaurus, but a 2015 study by Emmanuel Tschopp and colleagues found it to be distinct. It has seen widespread representation in popular culture, being the archetypal "long-necked" dinosaur in general media.
Nanosaurus is the name given to a genus of neornithischian dinosaur that lived about 155 to 148 million years ago, during the Late Jurassic-age. Its fossils are known from the Morrison Formation of the south-western United States. The type and only species, Nanosaurus agilis, was described and named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877. The taxon has a complicated taxonomic history, largely the work of Marsh and Peter M. Galton, involving the genera Laosaurus, Hallopus, Drinker, Othnielia, and Othnielosaurus, the latter three now being considered to be synonyms of Nanosaurus. It had historically been classified as a hypsilophodont or fabrosaur, types of generalized small bipedal herbivore, but more recent research has abandoned these groupings as paraphyletic and Nanosaurus is today considered a basal member of Neornithischia.
Dinocerata or Uintatheria, also known as uintatheres, is an extinct order of large herbivorous hoofed mammals with horns and protuberant canine teeth, known from the Paleocene and Eocene of Asia and North America. With body masses ranging up to 4,500 kilograms (9,900 lb) they represent some of the earliest known large mammals.
Diplocaulus is an extinct genus of lepospondyl amphibians which lived from the Late Carboniferous to the Late Permian of North America and Africa. Diplocaulus is by far the largest and best-known of the lepospondyls, characterized by a distinctive boomerang-shaped skull. Remains attributed to Diplocaulus have been found from the Late Permian of Morocco and represent the youngest-known occurrence of a lepospondyl. There are several species that have been discovered in this genus which are Diplocaudus salamandroides, Diplocaulus magnicornis, Diplocaulus brevirostris, Diplocaulus recurvatus?, and Diplocaulus minimus?.
Daeodon is an extinct genus of entelodont even-toed ungulates that inhabited North America about 23 to 20 million years ago during the latest Oligocene and earliest Miocene. The type species is Daeodon shoshonensis, described by a very questionable holotype by Cope. Some authors synonymize it with Dinohyus hollandi and several other species, but due to the lack of diagnostic material, this is questionable at best.
Sivatherium is an extinct genus of giraffids that ranged throughout Africa to the Indian subcontinent. The species Sivatherium giganteum is, by weight, one of the largest giraffids known, and also one of the largest ruminants of all time.
Amynodontidae is a family of extinct average-sized rhinocerotoids. They are commonly portrayed as semiaquatic hippo-like rhinos but this description only fits members of the Metamynodontini; other groups of amynodonts like the cadurcodontines had more typical ungulate proportions and convergently evolved a tapir-like proboscis.
Edmontosaurus annectens, often colloquially and historically known as the Anatosaurus, is a species of flat-headed saurolophine hadrosaurid dinosaur from the late Maastrichtian age at the very end of the Cretaceous period, in what is now western North America. Remains of E. annectens have been preserved in the Frenchman, Hell Creek, and Lance Formations. All of these formations are dated to the late Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous period, which represents the last three million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs. E. annectens is also found in the Laramie Formation and magnetostratigraphy suggests an age of 69-68 Ma for the Laramie Formation. Edmontosaurus annectens is known from numerous specimens, including at least twenty partial to complete skulls, discovered in the U.S. states of Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado, as well as the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It had an extremely long and low skull and was quite a large animal, growing up to approximately 12 metres (39 ft) in length and 5.6 metric tons in average asymptotic body mass, although it could have been even larger. E. annectens exhibits one of the most striking examples of the "duckbill" snout that is common to hadrosaurs. It has a long taxonomic history and specimens have at times been classified as Diclonius, Trachodon, Hadrosaurus, Claosaurus, Thespesius, Anatosaurus, and Anatotitan before all being grouped together in Edmontosaurus
The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, was a period of intense and ruthlessly competitive fossil hunting and discovery during the Gilded Age of American history, marked by a heated rivalry between Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. Each of the two paleontologists used underhanded methods to try to outdo the other in the field, resorting to bribery, theft, and the destruction of bones. Each scientist also sought to ruin his rival's reputation and cut off his funding, using attacks in scientific publications.
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