CHONDROSTEOSAURUS
a plant-eating sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of England.
Pronunciation: kon-DROS-tee-o-SOR-us
Meaning: Cartilage-boned lizard
Author/s: Owen (
1876)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Isle of Wight, England
Discovery Chart Position: #39
Chondrosteosaurus gigas
(Giant cartilage-boned lizard)Etymology
Chondrosteosaurus is derived from "chondrine" (from the Greek "khondros" meaning cartillage), "osteon" (bone), and "sauros" (lizard). Owen supposed the chambers in its vertebrae (a featue known to boffins as pneumaticity) were filled with Chondrine (cartillage) rather than by air from air sacks attached to the lungs. We now know this is poppy-cock, and palaeontologists suspect that most if not all dinosaurs had pneumatized bones and a bird-like "flow through" breathing system.
The
species epithet,
gigas, means "giant" in Greek.
Discovery
The remains of
Chondrosteosaurus were discovered in the Wessex Formation on the Isle of Wight, UK. The precise locality is uncertain and the discoverer is a complete mystery, but the fossils were most likely found at either Brighstone or Brook bay, sometime before 1876.
The
holotype (BMNH R46869) is a badly eroded partial neck vertebrae. Its "partner" (BMNH R46870) is a partial vertebrae that was sawn in half to reveal said pneumaticity.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Early Cretaceous
Stage: Barremian
Age range: 125-121 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: ?
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: ?
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Richard Owen (1849-84) "
A History of British Fossil Reptiles, Vol. 1".
Page 622-625.
• Seeley HG (1870) "On
Ornithopsis, a gigantic animal of the pterodactyle kind from the Wealden".
Annals and Magazine of Natural History, S4, 5: 279-283.
• Hulke JW (1879) "Note (3rd) on (
Eucamerotus, Hulke)
Ornithopsis, H. G. Seeley, =
Bothrospondylus magnus, Owen, =
Chondrosteous magnus, Owen".
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. 35: 752–762. DOI: 10.1144/GSL.JGS.1879.035.01-04.55.
• Owen R (1876) "
Monograph on the fossil Reptilia of the Wealden and Purbeck Formations. Supplement 7. Crocodilia (
Poikilopleuron) and Dinosauria? (
Chondrosteosaurus)". Palaeontographical Society Monographs, 30: 1-7.
• Holtz Jr. TR (2008) "
Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages".
• Moody RTJ, Buffetaut E, Naish D and Martill DM (2010) "
Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians: A Historical Perspective".
Geological Society, Special Publication, 343: 229.
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Atkinson, L.
"
CHONDROSTEOSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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