Pronunciation: puh-LUHK-see-SOR-us
Meaning: Paluxy lizard
Author/s: Rose (2001)
Synonyms: n/a
First Discovery: Texas, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #
Paluxysaurus jonesi
For two decades, sauropod remains from a bonebed at Jones
Ranch in Hood County, Texas—along with copious footprints, known as Brontopodus, from Glen Rose—were thought to belong to Pleurocoelus. But a thorough review of this material by Peter J. Rose in 2007 prompted the naming of an all-new genus, Paluxysaurus jonesi, which is distinct among Early Cretaceous sauropods of North America in the shape and proportions of its limbs, and among the sauropods of everywhere else in features of its vertebrae. Apparently.
This was bad news for Texas, which had adopted Pleurocoelus as their official state dinosaur in 1997, blissfully unaware that palaeontologists had been trying to sink it as a synonym of Maryland's Astrodon since 1903, but good news in that they had a tailor-made replacement-in-waiting. On the 19th June 2009, by a landslide margin of 7 "ayes" to 0 "nays", the designation of the Official Dinosaur of the Lone Star state was changed to Paluxysaurus jonesi at the behest of constituents at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and the crowd went wild. Unfortunately, the euphoria didn't last long.
In 2012, re-analysis of these bones and many more from Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas led D'Emic and Foreman to conclude that Paluxysaurus was the same animal as Sauroposeidon that Wedel, Cifelli and Sanders had named first. So, Texas voters found themselves in the rather embarrassing position of having traded one non-existent state dinosaur for another.
This was bad news for Texas, which had adopted Pleurocoelus as their official state dinosaur in 1997, blissfully unaware that palaeontologists had been trying to sink it as a synonym of Maryland's Astrodon since 1903, but good news in that they had a tailor-made replacement-in-waiting. On the 19th June 2009, by a landslide margin of 7 "ayes" to 0 "nays", the designation of the Official Dinosaur of the Lone Star state was changed to Paluxysaurus jonesi at the behest of constituents at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and the crowd went wild. Unfortunately, the euphoria didn't last long.
In 2012, re-analysis of these bones and many more from Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas led D'Emic and Foreman to conclude that Paluxysaurus was the same animal as Sauroposeidon that Wedel, Cifelli and Sanders had named first. So, Texas voters found themselves in the rather embarrassing position of having traded one non-existent state dinosaur for another.
(Bill Jones's Paluxy lizard)Etymology
Paluxysaurus is derived from "Paluxy" (the nearby town
of Paluxy, Texas, and the Paluxy River, which flows
through this region) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard). The species epithet, jonesi, honors William R. (Bill) Jones, who graciously allowed the excavation of important fossils on his land for the best part of two decades. ZooBank registry: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:52E525E6-17C4-4C12-B8C9-BC42814616A9.
Discovery
The fossils that would become Paluxysaurus were discovered in the Twin Mountains Formation at Jones Ranch Quarry (SMU Locality 282), Hood County, Texas, USA, by students from the University of Texas at Austin in the mid-1980s. Jeffrey G. Pittman worked the quarry for three field seasons from 1985 to 1987, then researchers from Southern Methodist University, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and Tarleton State University re-opened the quarry in 1993 and have worked it ever since.
The holotype (FWMSH 93B-10-18, a partial skull), plus a hatful of isolated bones representing at least four individuals from the same quarry, and sauropod footprints from the famous Paluxy River trackway near Glen Rose, a mere 25km away, make this one of the richest known accumulations of Early Cretaceous sauropod remains in North America. The holotype, at least, now belongs to Sauroposeidon.
