Pronunciation: DEN-vuh-SOR-us
Meaning: Denver lizard
Author/s: Bakker (1988)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: South Dakota, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #334
Denversaurus schlessmani
(Schlessman's Denver Museum Lizard)Etymology
Denversaurus is derived from "Denver" (for the Denver Museum of Natural History where the type specimen is housed) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard). The species epithet, schlessmani, honours Lee E. Schlessman, a major benefactor of the Denver Museum and founder of the Schlessman Family Foundation.
Discovery
The first remains of Denversaurus were discovered in the Lance Formation near the Twito Ranch, Corson County, South Dakota, USA, by Philip Reinheimer, a collector and technician at the Colorado Museum of Natural History, in 1922.The holotype (DMNH 468) consists of a skull minus the lower jaw and some armour plates. Referred material includes a weathered skull (AMNH 3076) found by Barnum Brown and Roland T. Bird in the Aguja Formation at the Tornillo Creek in Brewster County, Texas.
A nodosaurid skeleton found in the Lance Formation of Niobrara County, Wyoming, by a team from the Black Hills Institute, has also been identified as Denversaurus. Nicknamed "Tank", this specimen includes parts of the torso, about a hundred osteoderms, and the only known lower jaw. Initially housed at the Hayashibara Museum of Natural Sciences in Okayama, Japan, "Tank" now resides at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Colorado, catalogued as BHI 127327.
