Becklespinax

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Becklespinax
Fossil range: Early Cretaceous

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Saurischia
Suborder:	Theropoda
Superfamily:	Allosauroidea?
Genus:	Becklespinax Olshevsky, 1991

Species

B. altispinax (Paul, 1988) (type)

Becklespinax was a genus of large theropod dinosaur based on a type specimen of three tall-spined vertebrae found in 1884 in Sussex, England by the fossil collector Samuel H. Beckles. The fossils are believed to have been from the Early Cretaceous.

Its classification has proved difficult. The vertebrae were originally assumed to be linked with some theropod teeth and the result named Altispinax dunkeri, a species of the Superfamily Megalosauroidea. Later this assignment was shown to be unjustified, as the vertebrae identified as belonging to a new species of Acrocanthosaurus, Acrocanthosaurus altispinax. In 1991 it was reassigned to a new sinraptorid genus, Becklespinax, by George Olshevsky, in honour of its discoverer, Beckles. The type species is B. altispinax.