Mantellisaurus

Mantellisaurus
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 125Ma
Mounted skeleton, Natural History Museum, London
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Order: Ornithischia
Clade: Ornithopoda
Clade: Styracosterna
Clade: Hadrosauriformes
Genus: Mantellisaurus
Paul, 2007
Species:  M. atherfieldensis
Binomial name
Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis
(Hooley, 1925 [originally Iguanodon])
Synonyms

Iguanodon atherfieldensis Hooley, 1925
Proplanicoxa galtoni? Carpenter & Ishida, 2010

Mantellisaurus is a genus of dinosaur formerly known as Iguanodon atherfieldensis. The new genus was erected by Gregory Paul in 2007. According to Paul, it is more lightly built than Iguanodon and more closely related to Ouranosaurus, making Iguanodon in its traditional sense paraphyletic. It is known from many complete and almost complete skeletons. The genus name honours Gideon Mantell, the discoverer of Iguanodon. Mantellisaurus lived during the Early Cretaceous in what is now England.

Description

Restoration

Compared to Iguanodon bernissartensis, Mantellisaurus was smaller, estimated at 0.75 tons in weight. Its forelimbs were proportionally shorter than those of I. bernissartensis. In Mantellisaurus the forelimbs were about half the length of the hindlimbs whereas they were about 70 percent the length of the hindlimbs in I. bernissartensis. Due to the short length of its forelimbs and the shortness of its body, Paul proposed that it was primarily bipedal, only going on all fours when standing still or moving slowly.[1]

Discovery

Drawing of the holotype skull from Hooley's original description

The type fossil was originally discovered by Reginald Walter Hooley in 1914 in the upper Vectis Formation of southern England and reported upon in 1917. He posthumously named it Iguanodon atherfieldensis in 1925. Atherfield is the name of a village on the southwest shore of the Isle of Wight where the fossil was found. Synonyms include Dollodon and Proplanicoxa.[2]

The simplified cladogram below follows an analysis by Andrew McDonald and colleagues, published in November 2010 with information from McDonald, 2011.[3][4]

Iguanodontia

Rhabdodontidae




Tenontosaurus


Dryomorpha

Dryosauridae


Ankylopollexia

Camptosaurus


Styracosterna

Cumnoria



Uteodon





Hippodraco



Theiophytalia





Cedrorestes



Dakotadon



Iguanacolossus



Lanzhousaurus


Hadrosauriformes

Iguanodon



Mantellisaurus



Ouranosaurus



Hadrosauroidea










References

  1. Paul, Gregory S. (2008). "A revised taxonomy of the iguanodont dinosaur genera and species". Cretaceous Research 29 (2): 192–216. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2007.04.009.
  2. McDonald, Andrew T. (2012). "The status of Dollodon and other basal iguanodonts (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the upper Wealden beds (Lower Cretaceous) of Europe". Cretaceous Research advance online publication. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2011.03.002.
  3. McDonald, A.T.; Kirkland, J.I.; DeBlieux, D.D.; Madsen, S.K.; Cavin, J.; Milner, A.R.C.; Panzarin, L. (2010). Farke, Andrew Allen, ed. "New Basal Iguanodontians from the Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah and the Evolution of Thumb-Spiked Dinosaurs". PLoS ONE 5 (11): e14075. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014075. PMC 2989904. PMID 21124919.
  4. Andrew T. McDonald (2011). "The taxonomy of species assigned to Camptosaurus (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda)" (PDF). Zootaxa 2783: 52–68.

External links