The year 1915 involved numerous significant events in science and technology, some of which are listed below.
Spinosaurus is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the Cenomanian to upper Turonian stages of the Late Cretaceous period, about 99 to 93.5 million years ago. The genus was known first from Egyptian remains discovered in 1912 and described by German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915. The original remains were destroyed in World War II, but additional material came to light in the early 21st century. It is unclear whether one or two species are represented in the fossils reported in the scientific literature. The best known species is S. aegyptiacus from Egypt, although a potential second species, S. maroccanus, has been recovered from Morocco. The contemporary spinosaurid genus Sigilmassasaurus has also been synonymized by some authors with S. aegyptiacus, though other researchers propose it to be a distinct taxon. Another possible junior synonym is Oxalaia from the Alcântara Formation in Brazil.
Bahariya Oasis is a depression and a naturally rich oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. It is approximately 370 km away from Cairo. The roughly oval valley extends from northeast to southwest, has a length of 94 km, a maximum width of 42 km and covers an area of about 2000 km².
Aegyptosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Africa, around 95 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period.
Bahariasaurus is an enigmatic genus of large theropod dinosaur. Bahariasaurus is known to have included at least 1 species, Bahariasaurus ingens, which was found in North African rock layers dating to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous. The only fossils confidently assigned to Bahariasaurus were found in the Bahariya Formation of the Bahariya oasis in Egypt by Ernst Stromer but were destroyed during a World War II bombing raid with the same raid taking out the holotype of Spinosaurus and Aegyptosaurus among other animals found in the Bahariya Formation. While there have been more fossils assigned to the genus such as some from the Farak Formation of Niger, these remains are referred to with much less certainty. Bahariasaurus is, by most estimations, one of the largest theropods, approaching the height and length of other large bodied theropods such as Tyrannosaurus rex and the contemporaneous Carcharodontosaurus. The aforementioned estimations tend to put it at around 11–12 metres in length and 4 tonnes in overall weight.
Deltadromeus is a genus of theropod dinosaur from Northern Africa. It had long, unusually slender hind limbs for its size, suggesting that it was a swift runner. The skull is not known. One fossil specimen of a single species has been described, found in the Kem Kem Beds, which date to the mid-Cretaceous Period, about 95 million years ago. It may be a junior synonym of the contemporary Bahariasaurus. The classification of Deltadromeus has been in flux since its original description. In 2016, a South American theropod known as Gualicho shinyae was found to possess many similarities with Deltadromeus. Depending on the phylogenetic position of Gualicho, Deltadromeus may have been a neovenatorid carnosaur, a tyrannosauroid, or a basal coelurosaur if its close relation to Gualicho is legitimate. Other studies have considered it a ceratosaurian, more specifically a member of the family Noasauridae.
Janenschia is a large herbivorous sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation of Lindi Region, Tanzania around 155 million years ago.
Anoplosaurus is an extinct genus of herbivorous nodosaurid dinosaur, from the late Albian-age Lower Cretaceous Cambridge Greensand of Cambridgeshire, England. It has in the past been classified with either the armored dinosaurs or the ornithopods, but current thought has been in agreement with the "armored dinosaur" interpretation, placing it in the Ankylosauria.
Sigilmassasaurus is a possibly dubious genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived approximately 100 to 94 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous Period in what is now northern Africa. Named in 1996 by Canadian paleontologist Dale Russell, it contains a single species, Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis. The identity of the genus has been debated by scientists, with some considering its fossils to represent material from the closely related species Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, while others have classified it as a separate taxon, forming the clade Spinosaurini with Spinosaurus as its sister taxon.
Stomatosuchus is an extinct stomatosuchid neosuchian from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of Egypt. Much of what is known about Stomatosuchus has been inferred from the related genus Laganosuchus.
Schizorhiza is an extinct genus of schizorhizid sclerorhynchoid that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It contains one valid species, S. stromeri. It lived from the Santonian to Maastrichtian and its fossils have been found in Africa, the Middle East, North America, and South America.
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1932.
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1915.
Paranogmius is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish that lived during the Cenomanian. It is known from only 2 partial skulls and several dorsal vertebrae discovered in the Bahariya Formation that was destroyed during World War II. Since then, no more fossils have been discovered. It may have been up to 3 meters long.
Stomatosuchidae is an extinct family of neosuchian crocodylomorphs. It is defined as the most inclusive clade containing Stomatosuchus inermis but not Notosuchus terrestris, Simosuchus clarki, Araripesuchus gomesii, Baurusuchus pachecoi, Peirosaurus torminni, or Crocodylus niloticus. Two genera are known to belong to Stomatosuchidae: Stomatosuchus, the type genus, and Laganosuchus. Fossils have been found from Egypt, Morocco, and Niger. Both lived during the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous. The skulls of stomatosuchids are said to be platyrostral because they have unusually flattened, elongate, duck-shaped craniums with U-shaped jaws. This platyrostral condition is similar to what is seen in the "nettosuchid" Mourasuchus, which is not closely related to stomatosuchids as it is a more derived alligatoroid that existed during the Miocene.
Onchopristis is an extinct genus of sclerorhynchoid from the Cretaceous of North Africa, Europe, and North America. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek ónkos and prístis. It contains two valid species, O. numida and O. dunklei, though some researchers argue that both may be considered a single taxon with variation in morphology caused by a wide geographical range. Specimens of Onchopristis have been discovered in coastal and fluvial deposits dated from the Barremian to the Cenomanian age, making this genus one of the oldest and longest-lived sclerorhynchoid genera.
A neural spine sail is a large, flattish protrusion from the back of an animal formed of a sequence of extended vertebral spinous processes and associated tissues. Such structures are comparatively rare in modern animals, but have been identified in many extinct species of amphibians and amniotes. Paleontologists have proposed a number of ways in which the sail could have functioned in life.
Concavotectum is an extinct genus of tselfatiiforme bony fish that lived during the Cenomanian in Morocco and possibly Egypt. It was discovered and named in 2008 and is known from a single well preserved hand-sized skull and a few isolated vertebrae discovered in the Kem Kem Group. The type species, C. moroccensis, was named in 2008 and described in 2010. A possible second and third specimen, found in the Baharija Formation, consists of a 2 skulls and several vertebra, which were all destroyed on the night of 24-25 April 1940, during the Boming of Munich in World War II. They are currently the holotype of the possible synonym Paranogmius.
Richard Markgraf was a German Bohemian paleontologist. He is best remembered for his expeditions to Egypt, which discovered the first known remains of many extinct fossil reptiles, such as Aegyptosaurus and Spinosaurus.
