You know, it’s easy to see how we’ve misinterpreted fossils.
It’s difficult for any part of an animal to fossilize, so complete
specimens are rare and really special. So inaccurate palaeoart is
inevitable, and really not surprising at all. Then there are the times
when reconstructions accidentally depict a different animal entirely
unintentionally. We all know about how Tyrannosaurus was originally
reconstructed on Allosaurus and Apatosaurus on Camarosaurus, but they’re not
alone. Sometimes it’s because of misidentification, and sometimes it’s simply
due to laziness in paleontological reconstructions. Here are the top 10 Prehistoric Animals
people picture when they try to picture a different animal (there has to be a
specific word for this phenomenon. I’m sure there’s one in German or
something).
#10. Pterodactylus =Ludodactylus
Now, the first misconception about Pterodactylus (often
called simply “Pterodactyl”) is that it’s a dinosaur in the first place.
Pterosaurs have never been classified under true dinosaurs, but their
relationship to dinosaurs is still being debated. The consensus now is that they’re archosaurs
closely related to dinosaurs, but diverged in the later early Triassic and
evolved into recognizable flying forms at the end of the Triassic. The other misconception is their appearance;
say the word Pterodactyl and you invoke a long-snouted, skin-winged animal,
which is close enough, but said snout is full of sharp teeth and a long head
crest.
This is a chimera. The name and teeth come from
Pterodactylus itself, discovered in the 1780s by Cosimo Collini based on a
well-preserved specimen from Bavaria.
Colllini assumed it was an amphibian that used the long finlike fingers as
paddles, swimming the lost European sea that the limestone came from. In the 1800s it was correctly identified as
a flying reptile by the legendary anatomist Georges Cuvier. So from then on, the prehistoric skies of 19th
century books were full of these creatures, along with other European
pterosaurs of the Jurassic Dimorphodon and Rhamphorhynchus.
by Giuliano Fornari
Everything changed with the discovery by our friend Othniel
Charles Marsh of a new pterosaur, larger and crowned with a long crest, in Kansas in 1870.
Toothless, crested (this feature is sexually dimorphic, with the long-crested
males being the archetype) , and with a 20-foot wingspan, this flying reptile
became an icon of prehistory. It has become to Pterosaurs what Apatosaurus and
Tyrannosaurus are to Dinosaurs, unrivaled in its iconic status. However, it’s
been called Pterodactyl and portrayed with a beak full of death throughout the
20th century and indeed into the 21st, despite the name referring to a
different animal, a name literally meaning “winged toothless”. However in 2003, a coincidental pterosaur was
found matching the depiction of pterosaurs of the past century.
Also from the Cretaceous (albiet 40 million years earlier
than Pteranodon), this pterosaur was named by Dr. Eberhard Frey of the
Karlsruhe museum (along with his Karlsruhe college Marie Celine Buchy and
Portsmouth University’s David Martill), Frey and Buchy, by the way, have been
off and on working on a giant Mexican pliosaur nicknamed “The Monster of
Aranberri” that I’ve mentioned before.
The very word Ludodactylus is mixed Latin-Greek, meaning “play finger”
named for its resemblance to toys made of Pterosaurs. It’s a relative of Pteranodon, but is more
derived and is part of a toothy, crested, very successful group of sea
pterosaurus of the Cretaceous called Ornithocheirids. Living in the Crato Formation, near Ceara,
Brazil, it shared the air with other fish-eating pterosaurs like the crestless
Cearadactylus (featured in the novel Jurassic Park), long-winged Arthurdactylus
(named after Sir Conan Doyle, who played a colony of demonic Pterodactylus in
his classic The Lost world), Basileodactylus (which may be the senior synonym
of Ludodactlyus, or a junior synonym of Colobrynchus or Anhanguera), the big
toothless (and crestless) Lacusovagus, and the giant-crested Tupandactylus
#9 Dimetrodon=Secondontosaurus
Speaking of prehistoric animals that are commonly mistaken
for dinosaurs, Dimetrodon has likewise been lumped in with the Mesozoic
animals, despite not only being separated from the first dinosaur by more time
than between humans and Tyrannosaurus ,but also not even related to dinosaurs
and being ancestral to mammals. Dimetrodon, discovered by Marsh’s archrival
Edward Drinker Cope, is also a prehistoric icon, and was probably lumped in
with dinosaurs by its appearance in Sinclair Oil’s Dinosaur Exhibit at the 1933
Chicago World’s fair. Dimetrodon bears a
unique skull, with its 3-types of specialized teeth, and it’s instantly
recognizable by most paleontologists.
However, it’s this skull that everyone gets wrong. You see, it’s very easy to get that skull
wrong when you don’t look at it. The first analogy people have with pelycosaurs
are similarly proportioned reptiles of today, despite their total lack of
relation. Lizards and crocodiles have been used as models for dinosaurs, so
it’s only natural that they turn to them for the sprawling, lizard-shaped
Dimetrodon. Indeed, in the films One
Million BC (1940), The Lost World remake (1960), and Journey to the Center of
the Earth (1949), dimetrodons not only appeared as dinosaurs but also were depicted
by baby alligators (in both 1940 and 1960 films), and rhinoceros iguanas (1949).
Oddly enough, Cope also found another pelycosaur in his
expeditions to the Texas Red Beds. He identified it as a specimen of
Theropleura (Cope’s name for Marsh’s Ophiacodon), an amphibious predator, but
once again he was undone by Marsh. Marsh’s student Samuel W. Williston, who
helped discover Apatosaurus and Allosaurus, identified this particular morph of
“Theropleura” was a distinct species, naming it Secondontosaurus for its
flattened teeth in contrast to Ophiacodon’s conical piscivore teeth. The great tetrapod paleontologist Alfred
Romer finally put two and two together, discovering that a specimen of
Dimetrodon was actually the body of Williston’s pelycosaur.
Secondontosaurus lived in the same period and region as
Dimetrodon, as well as the same shape of body complete with tall dorsal fin,
but the head is what makes its distinct. It has a slender, slightly curved
skull resembling a monitor lizard or crocodilian with uniform cutting teeth
instead of the deep skull armed with a pattern of sharp incisors, huge fangs,
and smaller cutting teeth of Dimetrodon.
This long, narrow type of skull indicates a unique lifestyle distinct
from Dimetrodon and Ophiacodon. The great
Robert Bakker described it as the “Fox-Faced Finback”, and suggested it hunted
small burrowing reptiles and amphibians. http://hmnspaleo.blogspot.com/2007/10/secodontosaurus-fox-faced-finback.html
While Dimetrodon’s skull was evolved to tear through the flesh of huge animals
like Eryops, Diadectes, and Edaphosaurus, Secondontosaurus’ light and narrow
skull evolved to slip into tunnels and delicately snatch the residents. In 2006, Nancy Bowen of the Huston Museum
found a new specimen, the first found in 70 years. Hopefully more information
is coming on this specimen.
#8. Spinosaurus=Acrocanthosaurus and Arizonasaurus
Back before Jurassic Park 3 tried to push Spinosaurus as the
ultimate dinosaur, the genus was only known for the sail. Back in 1912, the great
paleontologist Ernst Stromer and his collector and friend Richard Markgraf discovered
a great deal of North African dinosaurs, as I mentioned in the paleontology
wishlist. As I said before, they were
able to publish their finds and Stromer identified a large number of Egyptian
species before 1944, when the RAF and USAF’s infamous destruction of the German
cities claimed Stromer’s collection as their victims.
by Susan Swan
With the original finds missing and the Cold War restricting
further international expeditions, paleontologists could only extrapolate from
Stromer’s descriptions. In this case, it was the massive backbone and unique
spinal sail and long clawed arms of Spinosaurus and the dangerous teeth of
Carcharodontosaurus found in close vicinity to each other. This caused a
confusion of the species-for almost an entire century, Spinosaurus became
described as an Allosaur with a fin. In the 70s, the discovery of Baryonyx, a
croc-snouted close relative didn’t cause a re-evaluation of the reconstruction,
but perversely both Baryonyx and Spinosaurus were occasionally depicted as
quadrupeds. This only changed in the
decade of 1995 to 2005, where 5 new specimens revealed an animal far more
similar to Baryonyx than Allosaurus.
by John Sibbick
The conflation wasn’t just a chimera, but because of another
theropod described in 1950-Acrocanthosaurus. This huge, robust American
predator was correctly identified as a relative of Allosaurus, and it possessed
elongated spinal processes-not to the same extent as the Dimetrodon-esque sail
of Spinosaurus, but certainly forming a long, low back crest. Thus, Acrocanthosaurus, due to physiology and
temporal range, became the missing link between Allosaurus and Spinosaurus.
Ironically, there was a big extinct predator with a tall
sail, big Allosaur-like head, and the ability to switch between two and four
legs, but it was no dinosaur. The
complete specimen was found in 2002 of the rauisuchid (remember Teratosaurus?)
Arizonasaurus. While only the size of an American alligator, Arizonasaurus and
its European sister species (down to the sail) Ctenosauriscus were the top predators of the
early and middle Triassic as part of the successful family of rauisuchids.
Rauisuchids had long enough forelimbs to be effective quadrupeds, but the
relative sizes of the pairs of limbs allowed them to walk or run erect
bipedally like a dinosaur. So when
illustrators of the 20th century portrayed Spinosaurus, they were portraying
Arizonasaurus.
#7 Velociraptor=Utahraptor
Velociraptor has become synonymous with the classic 1993
film Jurassic Park. They were the breakout stars,
symbolizing the Dinosaur Renaissance’s birdlike, intelligent, and vigorous new
image of dinosaurs. Just say the word Velociraptor, and everyone will flash to Jurassic Park’s hyperintelligent predators. Of
course, when you show the same people a contemporary, accurate rendition of
Velociraptor, they will be confused by the dog-sized, long-feathered, slender-snouted
little predator that’s “only” as fast as a lion and as smart as a bird.
This was a multi-step process in the ways of the corruption.
It all started when the great paleoartist and paleontological writer Greg Paul,
a “lumper” (any scientist who takes the position that various species and
genera are co-specific or co-generic, as opposed to their opposite adversaries
“splitters”) wrote his classic 1988 book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. In
it, he “lumped” all the known dromeosaurs into the single genus Velociraptor.
So, the big early Cretaceous dromeosaur Deinonychus became a species of
Velociraptor-Velociraptor antirrhopus. Michael Crichton, in researching for his
novel Jurassic Park, used Paul’s book. So, the main
villains of the novel were the classic Tyrannosaurus and the then-obscure
“Velociraptor”, now augmented with super intelligence and speed.
When Steven Spielberg adopted the best-selling novel, he
added one last twist-the mastiff-sized Deinonychus was inflated to the size of
humans while the big female leader becoming the size of a bear. Coincidentally, just as the film became a
hit, paleontologist Jim Kirkland and his partner Robert Gaston discovered a
new, giant dromeosaur-Utahraptor. Kirkland
reportedly called the film’s advisors Robert Bakker and Jack Horner with the
message “We’ve found Spielberg’s raptor”.
Indeed, Utahraptor became the image of Velociraptor and only recently
became successful in its own name, eclipsing Velociraptor in the public
eye.
As a coda, new discoveries continued, making the “raptors”
obsolete once and for all. In 1999, a tiny dromeosaur from the now-classic
Yixian formation, Sinornithosaurus, was found with well-preserved, undeniably
feathered integument. In 2007, the limbs
of Sinornithosaurus were compared with those of Velociraptor-the jury was out;
Velociraptor very probably had a full coat of feathers from head to tail to the
fingers. Dromeosaurs, it seems, used clawed wings to capture and wound
prey.
#6 Ankylosaurus=Euoplocephalus and Edmontonia
Ask someone to name an armored dinosaur, and three dinosaurs
will inevitably come up-the frilled Triceratops, plated Stegosaurus, and the
tank of tanks, Ankylosaurus.
Ankylosaurus usually has unique look-a horned head, a wide, turtlelike
body protected by flattened scutes on the back and long spines jutting from the
spines, and a big bilobed tail club used to bludgeon predators. In fact, only ten years ago has the true form
and size of Ankylosaurus been known. For almost a century, Ankylosaurus has
been a chimera of two great Canadian species to form an archetypical American
dinosaur.
by Rod Ruth
In 1908, Barnum Brown of the American
Museum returned to the beds of Montana where he found
Tyrannosaurus. Not only did he find the skull and neck of his legendary genus,
but also a new animal. The skull and body were of a wide, low-slung animal with
a coat of osteoderms on its back. In 1910, he found more in Alberta, including the club. Around the same time, however, Lawrence Lambe
of the Geological Survey of Canada (affiliated with the Canadian Museum of
Nature) discovered various new
ankylosaurus-Dyoplosaurus, Euoplocephalus, and Scolosaurus (which have been
grouped into Euoplocephalus by some, but split again by other paleontologists),
and complete specimens of Euoplocephalus and Scolosaurus.
In 1915, the American museum found a specimen of Edmontonia,
assigning it to the dubious tooth taxon Palaeoscincus, and it was the basis for
Charles Knight’s illustration for the Field Museum.
In 1933, Charles R. Knight made a series of 28 murals (as previously mentioned
in my Field Museum article), and one included
Ankylosaurus among groups of hadrosaurs. The American Museum’s
“Palaeoscincus” proved to be in better condition than its Ankylosaurus, so it
provided the basis for the reconstruction and so became introduced into popular
culture. Palaesocincus survived into the 80s before being acknowledged as
Edmontonia, while Ankylosaurus had received a makeover.
by Darlene Geiss
In 1947, Ankylosaurus received a facelift. Rudolph
Zallinger’s classic Age of Reptiles mural (as previously mentioned in my Yale
Peabody article) featured new poses and depictions of dinosaurs that lasted for
decades. At the end of the mural, a rather squat, toadlike Ankylosaurus sat
under the shadow of Tyrannosaurus. This
became the definitive model of Ankylosaurus with subsequent art, including more
by Zallinger and some by the great Zdenek Burian using that model. In 1964, Sinclair Oil co. redid its classic
dinosaur exhibit from 1933, using Zallinger’s reconstructions rather than
Knight’s. From then on, that was the
model.
by Rudolph Zallinger
In the 1980s came the Dinosaur Renaissance. Canada’s
dinosaurs were re-examined and quickly took the fore. Euoplocephalus became the
ankylosaur star, although mostly relabeled Ankylosaurus. In this era, Ankylosaurus was either a
modified version of Euoplocephalus or a slightly more realistic variation on
the 50’s turtle form. Walking Dinosaurs, for example, used characteristics of
both. Sometimes Ankylosaurus would show up just as a relabeled Euoplocephalus. To quote artist and blogger Tricia Arnold-"And I can't help but suspect it's because Euoplocephalus, while harder to pronounce, is way easier to draw"
by Bernard Long
However, in 2004, ankylosaur specialist Kenneth Carpenter
finally did a re-assesment of Ankylosaurus material. The result was a shorter,
slimmer animal, with flattened osteoderms spaced a few inches apart and an oval
tail club. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/e04-043#.U0wIlVegzrk
Here’s a nice overview of Ankylosaurus through the ages http://pseudoplocephalus.blogspot.com/2011/01/ankylosaurus-through-ages.html
#5 Brachiosaurus=Giraffititan
Brachiosaurus has become a sort of stock dinosaur. If you
see Diplodocus or Allosaurus, you can probably bet that Brachiosaurus isn’t far
behind. First discovered near Fruita, Colorado in 1900 by the Field
Museum’s Elmer Riggs, it was one of
the first specimens acquired by Chicago.
The neckless, headless skeleton was clearly a sauropod, but with long humeri,
deep ribs, and a short tail. A skull was discovered nearby, but it was badly
preserved and re-assigned to Apatosaurus (likewise, still at the museum, albeit
mostly reconstructed by casts of better-preserved fossil bones). Riggs dubbed
it Brachiosaurus altithorax, an animal only matched by the Carnegie Museum’s
Apatosaurus and Diplodocus for spectacle.
In 1914, the Humboldt
Museum’s own dinosaur chief, Werner
Janesch, discovered a vast quarry in Lindi in German East Africa (now Tanzania). The
biggest and best-preserved of his sauropods was a big, long-armed gracile
sauropod, which he named Brachiosaurus branchai. He found multiple specimens,
and pieced them together back in Berlin.
The mount remains one of the largest in the world, surviving the wars and still
dominating the museum hall. This magnificent composite mount became the basis
for all depictions of Brachiosaurus, including those of Zdenek Burian and
Rudolph Zallinger. The long neck and
short-snouted, tall-crested head was composited with Riggs’ specimen to
recreate the American animal.
Fairly straightforward, right? This arrangement lasted a
century. Then in 1998, the Denver museum’s (now
at the Utah State Museum)
Kenneth Carpenter and Virginia
Tidwell reconstructed the skull Riggs identified as a brontosaur. It turned out to be a Brachiosaurus-similar
to Janesch’s, but longer and longer. While disarticulated from the body, it was
still from the Garden
Park quarry, and probably
belonged to the same species. Meanwhile, Gregory S Paul, in a rare moment of
splitting (his only other was the breaking up of Iguanodon, which is another
story) erected a new genus for the
African brachiosaur; Giraffitian. Dinosaur taxonomist George Olshevsky and later
Manchester University’s sauropod expert Michael
Taylor agreed, placing it as a sister species to Brachiosaurus.
The unintended
result is that all Brachiosaurus depictions (since the US holds a
majority in dinosaur authors and artists) are based on Giraffitan. Fortunately,
Brachiosaurus in art can be either genus if the drawing isn’t too detailed or
if it has slightly different proportions, so it’s not as egregious as the other
mistakes in this list.
There are other
former members of Brachiosaurus as well; in Portugal, the Lourinha formation is
nearly identical to the Morrison and so they have a brachiosaur. This one is
called Lusotitan, but is not as well preserved as the American or African
genera. Another species, Brachiosaurus nougaredi, was found in Cretaceous
strata in Algeria.
(more here http://www.paleoglot.org/files/Lapparent_60.pdf http://svpow.com/2009/11/24/more-out-than-in/) Most of the skeleton is lost or poorly
preserved, but what remains suggests a titanosaur or brachiosaur of absolutely
colossal size.
#4. Mammuthus primigenus=Mammuthus
Say the word mammoth. Think about what the word evokes in
your mind. Most likely you’ll be thinking of a giant prehistoric elephant,
covered in thick hair, towering over other elephants. Mammoth is sometimes preceded by the term
wooly, although most times the word mammoth is used, wooly is implied. After all, there’s no other mammoths, right?
Wooly Mammoths are by far the best known of prehistoric
elephants. They ranged from York eastwards to New York, conquering the
glacial sheets. They’ve been preserved by big rugged teeth, huge curved tusks,
and even complete mummies. They appear in myth and legend across the Arctic circle, and archaeological finds show that
mammoths provided food, clothes, tools and shelter for the humans that moved
into the north. The type species for Mammuthus is the wooly mammoth Mammuthus
primigenus. The species was identified as a prehistoric elephant by the
aforementioned Georges Cuvier and then named by
Göttingen’s eminent physician
and naturalist Johann Blumenbach in 1799 as a species of elephant, and
assigned to its present genus by the great naturalist Joshua Brookes in 1828.
Wooly mammoths were indeed the last mammoths to go extinct,
and by far the most successful, but they weren’t the only species, and they
weren’t the largest. Wooly mammoths may be the most common fossil mammoths
found, but If you look at a wooly mammoth skeleton carefully, you will realize
that it’s not any bigger than an Asian elephant. It’s still imposing and was
usually the largest animal in its environment, but it was not mammoth for a
mammoth.
Here’s a good rundown of the mammoth species: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/mammoths/
The first mammoth species wasn’t wooly at all-in the
Pliocene savannas of Africa, it was probably
only distinguished from other elephants by the shape of the skull and tusks.
Most likely, this Mammuthus subplanifrons coexisted with Australopithecus and
other early savanna apes, as well as other species of elephants and
deinotheres. Later in the Pliocene, it
was supplanted by Mammuthus africanavus. Like the Ancestral Mammoth, the
African Mammoth was slightly smaller than the African elephant and it’s very
unlikely to have had much hair.
Interestingly enough, as soon as mammoths leave Africa, they go extinct
in Africa. Did the true elephants replace
them?
by Charles Knight
A poorly known species, Mammuthus rumanus has been found in Eastern Europe around the same time as the similarly
obscure African mammoth, and either produced the next species Mammuthus meridionalis.
The Southern mammoth ranged from Central Asia to England in from the early
Pleistocene to the later interglacials. Its teeth were adapted to eating foliage,
their tusks shorter and straighter, but they were larger than African
elephants. These big successful mammoths managed to cross across into North
America, and while the they were succeeded in Eurasia
by the Steppe Mammoth, the Americans evolved into a separate species, the
Columbian mammoth.
by Jagroar, Deviantart user
The steppe mammoth, Mammuthus trogontherii had a smaller
skull and larger tusks than the Southern Mammoth, living until the late
Pleistocene in a range from Britain
to Hokkaido.
The teeth are far more specialized-this animal lived mostly on vast grasslands
of Eurasia, giving the species its name. This animal was huge-the average is larger
than an African bull elephant, and one found on the Songhua
(tributary of the Amur) river was 18 feet tall and 30 feet long. The Steppe
Mammoth was the largest of the mammoths clearly, and was the largest
terrestrial animal since the indricotheruium 20 million years before.
by DiBgd, Deviant Art user
The Colombian mammoth, Mammothus colombi, had a far more
generalized diet-dung indicated that even fruit made up a large component of
the diet. This was a successful animal, ranging from Rivas to Medicine
Hat and from Los Angeles to Vero Beach. The size
rivaled that of its Eurasian counterpart-the largest bulls, once classified
into their own species the Imperial Mammoth, would have been slightly larger
than Jumbo the elephant (like mammoths, Jubo has become an adjective and
synonymous with the gigantic). Unlike
the Steppe mammoth, the Colombian mammoth managed to last long enough to
encounter human beings, appearing in rock art in Utah and what first appears to
be tapirs in Mesoamerican art may actually be memories of prehistoric
elephants.
by Charles Knight
Then there’s the three species of dwarf mammoth, each
roughly the size of a small pony. Like
other elephants, mammoths experienced island dwarfism, an evolutionary
phenomenon where smaller, less resource-intensive populations of large species
are selected and eventually speciate. Mammuthus
lamarmorae in Sardinia, Mammuthus exilis in Santa Rosa, and Mammuthus creticus
in Crete all evolved independently from giant mainland ancestors before going
extinct like all the mammoths.
#3. Mammut=Mammuthus
Speaking of mammoths, this is one that comes up a great
deal. This one is short but has an intriguing history. People tend to use the
terms Mastodon and Mammoth interchangeably. I remember in first grade arguing
that the Black Power Ranger was driving a mammoth, not a mastodon. American Mastodons lived alongside Wooly
Mammoths in the Northern half of North America and were about the same size,
but they diverged in evolution long before. During the Miocene epoch,
probiscideans diversified into four branches- the hoe-tusked Deinotheres,
long-jawed Gomphotheres, cone-toothed mastodons, and ridge-toothed elephants.
by Velizar Simeonovski
It’s not hard to find out how the differences work out; any
decent book or website should be able to clarify. Here’s some quick ones here http://www.livescience.com/34446-mammoth-or-mastodon.html
http://mentalfloss.com/article/54120/whats-difference-between-mammoth-and-mastodon
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/mammoths-and-mastodons-all-american-monsters-8898672/?no-ist
It’s also not hard to see how they can be confused. They’re
shaggy elephant relatives from the Pleistocene, roughly the same size and
shape. This is especially difficult since the American Mastodon’s genus is
Mammut!
by Charles Knight
In the 1790s, there was an attempt to classify the weird
giant bones discovered in Europe and America that looked very much like
elephant bones. So, in 1792, Robert Kerr, a Scottish anatomist, looked at
specimens brought over from the recently established United States by his
fellow fossil enthusiast Thomas Jefferson.
Kerr, agreeing with Jefferson’s slaves, identified the bones as those of
a prehistoric elephant, calling it Elephas americanum. However, later that
year, Kerr erected a new species since the teeth were far different from
Elephas (then containing species of living elephants and mammoths), and called
it Mammut for the ancient Siberian underground monster. Apparently, Jefferson
was fond of the name Mammoth, and wanted to use it for the American “elephant”,
so he might have had some influence on Kerr’s reclassification. In 1817,
however, Cuvier ignored Kerr’s name and dubbed the animal Mastodon.
by Charles Knight
While Cuvier’s name became popular in media and the popular
culture, Brookes acknowledged his colleague Kerr’s name and called the new
genus of mammoths Mammuthus instead of Mammut.
There’s also the fact that Jefferson considered the Mammut and the
Mammuthus to be the same animal, arguing that the teeth Cuvier described were
from his carnivorous Megalonyx (described based on giant claws, and later
turning out to be a ground sloth). I think everyone would prefer Cuvier’s name,
but unfortunately the rules of nomenclature are a cruel mistress (I will devote
another post on this) and Mammut is the name we’re stuck with. Like
Brontosaurus, Mastodon is relegated as the common name rather than the
scientific one.
#2 Oviraptor=Citipati,
Ah, Oviraptor. One of the most misunderstood dinosaurs, but
endlessly popular. Would you believe
it’s based on one, crushed specimen?
When the legendary Roy Chapman Andrews went on his famous expedition to
Mongolia, he found a nest full of dinosaur eggs and a small theropod on top of
the nest. Andrews had found many nests
and eggs earlier in the expedition, belonging to Protoceratops, so he assumed
the nest belonged to Protoceratops and the theropod was raiding the nest. His supervisor
back in New York, Henry Fairfield Osborn, dubbed it Oviraptor, and saw the long
arms and powerful beak and assumed it to be a specialist egg-thief. The toothless beak also reminded him of Struthiomimus,
and so he classified it as an Ornithomimid. So, early depictions of Oviraptor show it as an
Ornithomimid.
by Rudolph Zallinger
The Cold War closed off further contact between American
paleontologist and Mongolia until the 1990s, when Mark Norell led another
American Museum team to Andrew’s old sites. This time, he and his Mongolian
partner Rinchen Barsbold found many more oviraptorid fossils, including one
very large oviraptor lying over another nest, this one containing embryos and
eggs of its own species. The news rocked the paleontological world. Oviraptor
was cast from egg-snatcher to loving mother. Oviraptor was now well-known,
well-established, and had a new look-Big Mama (as she would be called) had a
tall crest and her brooding position suggested at least partial plumage.
by Luis Rey
In 2001, however, they found the skull of new oviraptor
species, Citipati. Big Mama was reclassified as this genus. However, in those
10 years, Oviraptor had become set in its way, stuck in the form of Citipati.
Indeed, without the Citipati specimens, Oviraptor is reduced back to only being
known from Andrew’s specimen. However, Citipati has given us a very good luck
at Oviraptor’s body type, as have other oviraptorid specimens. Like
Velociraptor and Dromeosaurus, which were poorly known until Dromeosaurus was
discovered, Oviraptor’s enigma has been solved after decades of confusion.
#1 Megalosaurus=Becklespinax, Valdoraptor and Neovenator
With Britain being on top of the world at the time dinosaurs
were first discovered, it’s no wonder the first two dinosaurs found were
British: The ornithopod Iguanodon and the theropod Megalosaurus. The legendary
anatomist Richard Owen named them dinosaurs. While William Buckland’s first
Megalosaurus was found in Jurassic rock, Owen assigned more English theropod
fossils to the genus, extending the temporal range from the early Jurassic to
the early Cretaceous.
by Édouard Riou
Even before this, the two animals were paired together in
the minds of the public. There was the giant herbivore, there was the giant
predator. Naturally, they would be connected to each other. Poor Hylaeosaurus
made up the third member of Owen’s dinosaur triumvirate, but has always been a
background animal. It was Iguanodon and
Megalosaurus that were the stars of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ prehistoric
sculptures of Crystal Palace, and are still a rail ride away through the London
boroughs.
by Benjamin Hawkins
Iguanodon’s reconstruction was based partially on an iguana,
and likewise the Megalosaurus was based partially on a monitor lizard. These
animals were the original slurpasaurus, and were pictured in mortal combat a
full century before filmmakers dressed up iguanas and monitors as dinosaurs.
Just looking at these old images by Eduard Riou and John Martin seems like a
flashback to dinosaur movies of the 1940s
by John Martin
Even as time went on, the duo continued. Indeed, if you were
to read any comprehensive dinosaur book, they shared many continents in the
Early Cretaceous, and Megalosaurus first originated in the early Jurassic. Even
in the Dinosaur Renaissance, the two were inseparable, arising together
whenever early dinosaur discoveries or early Cretaceous Europe came into the
discussion. In their own way, they came
together like Apatosaurus and Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops.
by Bernard Long
This was because of an unfortunate habit in the 20th
and19th centuries. You see, every specimen closely resembling a well-known or
established species was thrown in. Between 30 and 40 species were named between
1826 and 2006, and all but one turned out to be either a very different
theropod, or too poor to get any data. Iguanodon also received this treatment,
but the span was geographical, not temporal, and so is not important in this
case.
artist uncredited
Instead, we should focus on specimens that were assigned to
Megalosaurus from the early Cretaceous of Europe. First, let’s look at the
dinosaurs from the Hastings Beds, the oldest part of the Wealden supergroup. 3
vertebra were found in 1856, all having long spines. At first, they were
considered to belong to Buckland’s Megalosaurus, and so Owen instructed Hawkins
to give the Crystal Palace Megalosaurus a tall hump. However, they were
assigned to a new species in 1884 and then to a new genus Altispinax in 1923
along with a theropod tooth. The tooth turned out to be non-diagnostic,
however, and so the theropod spines were assigned a fourth species Becklespinax,
tentatively placed as a carnosaur Megalosaurus
woodwardi is a tooth taxon, which
are dubious and difficult to classify. Megalosaurus superbus’ original
specimens were lost in the battle for France in World War 2. Tarsals (foot
bones) from 1858 was assigned to Megalosaurus oweni in 1889. Finally,
George Olshevsky in 1991 assigned it to a new genus, Valdoraptor. Fittingly enough, the Iguanodon remains in
the Hastings beds are also either dubious teeth or split into two new genera of
Iguanodonts-the robust Barilum and the gracile Hypselospinus. Darren Naish, an authority on the Wealden’s
dinosaurs, talked about the theropod enigma’s in a post on Tetrapod Zoology http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/10/02/becklespinax-and-valdoraptor/
So, what was the main predator of Iguanodon, found in the
Wealden proper? It was thought to be Megalosaurus when it was discovered in
1978, and many teeth found in the area were assigned to Megalosaurus. However,
in 1996, Steve Hutt, Dave Martill and Mike Barker identified it as a new genus
related to Allosaurus called Neovenator salerii. I hope to feature this species
in a blog by itself, but in the meantime, I’ll just say that it was a
carnosaur, not a Megalosaurus. So, whenever you see a large theropod hunting
Iguanodon in a book or film, it is Neovenator, not Megalosaurus.
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