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John Robert Horner is an American paleontologist most famous for discovering and naming Maiasaura, providing the first clear evidence that some dinosaurs cared for their young. In addition to his paleontological discoveries, Horner served as the technical advisor for all the Jurassic Park films, had a cameo appearance in Jurassic World, and served as a partial inspiration for one of the lead characters of the franchise, Dr. Alan Grant. Horner studied at the University of Montana, although he did not complete his degree due to undiagnosed dyslexia, and was awarded a Doctorate in Science honoris causa. He retired from Montana State University on July 1, 2016 although he claims to have been pushed out of the Museum of the Rockies after having married an undergraduate student and now teaches as a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University.
Gorgosaurus is a genus of tyrannosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in western North America during the Late Cretaceous Period (Campanian), between about 76.6 and 75.1 million years ago. Fossil remains have been found in the Canadian province of Alberta and possibly the U.S. state of Montana. Paleontologists recognize only the type species, G. libratus, although other species have been erroneously referred to the genus.
The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia.
The Ornithomimosauria, ornithomimosaurs or ostrich dinosaurs are theropod dinosaurs which bore a superficial resemblance to the modern-day ostrich. They were fast, omnivorous or herbivorous dinosaurs from the Cretaceous Period of Laurasia, as well as Africa and possibly Australia. The group first appeared in the Early Cretaceous and persisted until the Late Cretaceous. Primitive members of the group include Nqwebasaurus, Pelecanimimus, Shenzhousaurus, Hexing and Deinocheirus, the arms of which reached 2.4 m (8 feet) in length. More advanced species, members of the family Ornithomimidae, include Gallimimus, Struthiomimus, and Ornithomimus. Some paleontologists, like Paul Sereno, consider the enigmatic alvarezsaurids to be close relatives of the ornithomimosaurs and place them together in the superfamily Ornithomimoidea.
Therizinosaurs were small to giant-sized, mainly herbivorous, theropod dinosaurs that have been found across the Early to Late Cretaceous deposits in Mongolia, China and North America. Various features of the forelimbs, skull and pelvis unite these finds as both theropods and maniraptorans, close relatives to birds. The representative genus, Therizinosaurus, is derived from the Greek θερίζω and σαῦρος. The older representative, Segnosaurus, is derived from the Latin word segnis and the Greek σαῦρος.
Abrictosaurus is a genus of heterodontosaurid dinosaur from the Early Jurassic Period of what is now southern Africa. It was a small bipedal herbivore or omnivore, approximately 1.2 meters (4 feet) long, and weighing less than 45 kilograms (100 pounds).
Massospondylus is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic Period. It was described by Sir Richard Owen in 1854 from remains discovered in South Africa, and is thus one of the first dinosaurs to have been named. Fossils have since been found at other locations in South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. Material from Arizona's Kayenta Formation, India, and Argentina has been assigned to this genus at various times, but the Arizonan and Argentinian material are now assigned to other genera.
Fabrosaurus is a genus of ornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic. It was originally placed within the now obsolete family Fabrosauridae.
Alvarezsaurus is a genus of small alvarezsaurid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, living in Argentina approximately 86 – 83 million years ago. Estimates suggest that it measured about 1.4 meters (4.6 ft) in length and weighed approximately 2.27-9.1 kg (5-20 lbs). In 2010, Gregory S. Paul estimated its weight at 3 kg and length at 1 m. It was found in the Bajo de la Carpa Formation and was named by paleontologist José Bonaparte in 1991 after the historian Don Gregorio Alvarez. The type species is A. calvoi.
Paranthodon is a genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in what is now South Africa during the Early Cretaceous, between 139 and 131 million years ago. Discovered in 1845, it was one of the first stegosaurians found. Its only remains, a partial skull, isolated teeth, and fragments of vertebrae, were found in the Kirkwood Formation. British paleontologist Richard Owen initially identified the fragments as those of the pareiasaur Anthodon. After remaining untouched for years in the British Museum of Natural History, the partial skull was identified by South African paleontologist Robert Broom as belonging to a different genus; he named the specimen Palaeoscincus africanus. Several years later, Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa, unaware of Broom's new name, similarly concluded that it represented a new taxon, and named it Paranthodon owenii. Since Nopcsa's species name was assigned after Broom's, and Broom did not assign a new genus, both names are now synonyms of the current binomial, Paranthodon africanus. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek para (near) with the genus name Anthodon, to represent the initial referral of the remains.
Trimucrodon is a genus of herbivorous dinosaur from the Late Jurassic Alcobaça Formation of what is now Portugal. It has been classified as a basal ornithischian, but is a nomen dubium: it is a "tooth genus" known only from its teeth.
Piveteausaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur known from a partial skull discovered in the Middle Jurassic Marnes de Dives formation of Calvados, in northern France and lived about 164.7-161.2 million years ago. In 2012 Thomas Holtz gave a possible length of 11 meters.
Jiangshanosaurus is a genus of herbivorous titanosauriform sauropod dinosaur that lived in China approximately 105 million years ago, during the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous.
"Stereosaurus" is the name given to an as-yet undescribed genus of plesiosaur. Among the species are: "Stereosaurus platyomus", "S. cratynotus" and "S. stenomus", all coined by British paleontologist Harry Seeley, who considered them to be plesiosaurian, in 1869. None have ever been formally described, and since so much time has passed, the original remains may have been lost or renamed something else by now.
Thomas Richard Holtz Jr., Ph.D. is an American vertebrate palaeontologist, author, and principal lecturer at the University of Maryland's Department of Geology. He has published extensively on the phylogeny, morphology, ecomorphology, and locomotion of terrestrial predators, especially on tyrannosaurids and other theropod dinosaurs. He wrote the book Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages and is the author or co-author of the chapters "Saurischia", "Basal Tetanurae", and "Tyrannosauroidea" in the second edition of The Dinosauria. He has also been consulted as a scientific advisor for the Walking With Dinosaurs BBC series as well as the Discovery special When Dinosaurs Roamed America, and has appeared in numerous documentaries focused on prehistoric life, such as Jurassic Fight Club on History and Monsters Resurrected on Discovery.
Saurischia is one of the two basic divisions of dinosaurs. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two orders, based on their hip structure, though today most paleontologists classify Saurischia as an unranked clade rather than an order.
Suchosaurus is a spinosaurid dinosaur from Cretaceous England and Portugal, originally believed to be a genus of crocodile. The type material, consisting of teeth, was used by British palaeontologist Richard Owen to name the species S. cultridens in 1841. Later in 1897, French palaeontologist Henri-Émile Sauvage named a second species, S. girardi, based on two fragments from the mandible and one tooth discovered in Portugal. Suchosaurus is possibly a senior synonym of the contemporary spinosaurid Baryonyx, but is usually considered a dubious name due to the paucity of its remains. In the Wadhurst Clay Formation of what is now southern England, Suchosaurus lived alongside other dinosaurs, as well as plesiosaurs, mammals, and crocodyliforms.
Maniraptoriformes is a clade of dinosaurs with pennaceous feathers and wings that contains ornithomimosaurs and maniraptorans. This group was named by Thomas Holtz, who defined it as "the most recent common ancestor of Ornithomimus and birds, and all descendants of that common ancestor."
Paleoart is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depictions of the living creatures and their ecosystems. While paleoart is typically defined as being scientifically informed, it is often the basis of depictions of prehistoric animals in popular culture, which in turn influences public perception of and fuels interest in these animals.
This timeline of plesiosaur research is a chronologically ordered list of important fossil discoveries, controversies of interpretation, taxonomic revisions, and cultural portrayals of plesiosaurs, an order of marine reptiles that flourished during the Mesozoic Era. The first scientifically documented plesiosaur fossils were discovered during the early 19th century by Mary Anning. Plesiosaurs were actually discovered and described before dinosaurs. They were also among the first animals to be featured in artistic reconstructions of the ancient world, and therefore among the earliest prehistoric creatures to attract the attention of the lay public. Plesiosaurs were originally thought to be a kind of primitive transitional form between marine life and terrestrial reptiles. However, now plesiosaurs are recognized as highly derived marine reptiles descended from terrestrial ancestors.
References
- ↑ Holtz, Thomas R. (2012). "Dinosaur Hunters of the Southern Continents". In Brett-Surman, Michael K.; Holtz, Thomas R.; Farlow, James O. (eds.). The complete dinosaur (2nd ed.). Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0253008497.
- ↑ Collins, Ben (28 May 2012). "James Price Point world's only landscape to be shaped by dinosaur traffic". ABC Kimberley. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 14 Oct 2014.
- ↑ Ellis, Richard, (2003) "The Plesiosaurs" in Sea Dragons - Predators of the Prehistoric Oceans. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1269-6.
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