David B Norman

University of Cambridge | Cam · Department of Earth Sciences

The origin and evolutionary relationships of ornithischian dinosaurs are topics that have undergone a series of substantial revisions. At present there are several competing hypotheses concerning the relationship between Ornithischia and the other principal clades of Dinosauria. Some hypotheses have posited a tree topology within Dinosauria that im...

Cranial exostoses (areas of periosteal ornamentation) are present on the external surfaces of the skull and mandible of Scelidosaurus harrisonii. True osteoderms have also been identified on the skull, forming a ‘brow-ridge’ of three supraorbital bones, dished plates that are attached to the lateral surface of the postorbitals and a pair of larger,...

A layer of keratinous scutes encased the skull of Scelidosaurus. The neurocranium and the associated principal sensory systems of this dinosaur are described. The cranial musculature is reconstructed and a subsequent functional analysis suggests that jaw motion was orthal, allowing pulping of vegetation and some high-angle shearing between opposing...

Scelidosaurus fossils were first discovered during the commercial quarrying of the Liassic sea-cliffs between Charmouth and Lyme Regis in Dorset during the late 1850s. The original specimens included a well-preserved skull embedded in a block of argillaceous limestone (marlstone). Shortly after this skull was retrieved, a series of more-or-less con...

Despite historic work, the mechanisms and evolutionary drivers associated with the adoption of a facultatively bipedal locomotor mode in extant lepidosaurs are unclear. Recent work has provided insights into the biomechanical triggers of bipedal locomotion, but the associated anatomies are yet to be fully understood, particularly with regard to bod...

Facultative bipedality is regarded as an enigmatic middle ground in the evolution of obligate bipedality and is associated with high mechanical demands in extant lepidosaurs. Traits linked with this phenomenon are largely associated with the caudal end of the animal: hindlimbs and tail. The articulation of the pelvis with both of these structures s...

Scelidosaurus harrisonii is an early (Late Sinemurian) armoured ornithischian dinosaur whose remains have, to date, only been recovered from a restricted location on the south coast of Dorset (Charmouth), England. This dinosaur has been known since 1859, but only on the basis of a partial description found in two articles published in the early 186...

Bipedal locomotion is a defining characteristic of humans and birds and has a profound effect on how these groups interact with their environment. Results from extensive hominin research indicate that there exists an intermediate stage in hominin evolution-facultative bipedality-between obligate quadrupedality and obligate bipedality that uses both...

Amphibians transport water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and various ions (e.g. sodium and potassium) across their skin. This cutaneous permeability is thought to affect their ability to respond to environmental change and to play a role in global population declines. Sexual dimorphism of skin anatomy has been accepted in some species, but rejected in ot...

A comprehensive analysis of early dinosaur relationships raised the possibility that the group may have originated in Laurasia (Northern Hemisphere), rather than Gondwana (Southern Hemisphere) as often thought. However, that study focused solely on morphology and phylogenetic relationships and did not quantitatively evaluate this issue. Here, we in...

Ornithischian dinosaurs were important and often dominant members of Cretaceous ecosystems around the world. However, the early evolution of this interesting and diverse clade during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic remains poorly understood. Lesothosaurus diagnosti-cus from the Upper Elliot Formation of South Africa and Lesotho (?Hettangian-Sinemu...

‘Relationships between dinosaurs’ examines the techniques used to study the geneaology, or evolutionary history, of dinosaurs. The primary technique is cladistics—or phylogenetic systematics—that generates branching diagrams of relationship known as cladograms. Dinosaurs have been split into two main clades: the Saurischia (‘lizard-hipped’) and Orn...

‘Dinosaurs: their biology and way of life’ considers the research into whether dinosaurs were cold-blooded (ectothermic) like modern reptiles, or warm-blooded (endothermic) like mammals and birds, or whether dinosaurs exploited other types of metabolic regime. There is a wide range of dinosaur physiologies from the fossil record, which along with e...

‘The future of research on the past’ outlines how the account of dinosaur extinction 65 Ma has developed. In the 1980s, Walter and Luis Alvarez examined levels of cosmic dust in the Earth’s crust and found evidence of a massive meteorite collision. This would have generated an enormous dust cloud that would have strangled all plant life and caused...

In ‘Dinosaur research: observation and techniques’, various lines of investigation are outlined to reinforce the point that it is often better to use numerous approaches if we are to gain a balanced understanding of the natural history and biology of fossil animals. But we are governed by two factors: what we can observe through new discoveries, an...

‘Dinosaurs in perspective’ outlines the development of palaeontology. Dinosaurs existed in the Mesozoic Era, which is split into the Triassic (~252–201 Ma), Jurassic (~201–145 Ma), and Cretaceous (~145–66 Ma) Periods. The fossil record is patchy, and dinosaur research requires knowledge of geology as well as of fossils. The existence of ancient, la...

‘Dinosaurs updated’ charts the revolutionary discoveries of John Ostrom and Robert Bakker in the 1960s and 1970s. Ostrom adopted a forensic approach to his discovery of Deinonychus (‘terrible claw’). This dinosaur was an intelligent predator with a good turn of pace, much at odds with the prevailing view of dinosaurs as slow witted, sluggish beasts...

‘A new perspective on Iguanodon’ discusses developments in our knowledge of Iguanodon biology. A massive haul of Iguanodon skeletons fuelled a popular picture of how the creature lived, but was it accurate? Examination of the casts shows that the tail was broken to fit the researchers’ bipedal hypothesis—Iguanodon actually moved on all fours. This...

Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction discusses how dinosaurs were first discovered and interpreted, and how our understanding of them has changed over the past 200 years. It looks at some of the amazing discoveries that have enabled us to gain new and unexpected insights into dinosaurs as animals with natural histories and behaviours, and considers...

This important group of ornithischian dinosaurs has a history that extends from the Early Jurassic until the close of the Cretaceous Period. The group as a whole can logically be subdivided into three quite distinct lineages: the heterodontosaurs , the hypsilophodonts , and the iguanodonts . I shall discuss the attributes of these groups separately...

For 130 years, dinosaurs have been divided into two distinct clades—Ornithischia and Saurischia. Here we present a hypothesis for the phylogenetic relationships of the major dinosaurian groups that challenges the current consensus concerning early dinosaur evolution and highlights problematic aspects of current cladistic definitions. Our study has...

It has become accepted in recent years that the fossil record can preserve labile tissues. We report here the highly detailed mineralization of soft tissues associated with a naturally occurring brain endocast of an iguanodontian dinosaur found in c. 133 Ma fluvial sediments of the Wealden at Bexhill, Sussex, UK. Moulding of the braincase wall and...

Lesothosaurus diagnosticus from the upper Elliot Formation of South Africa and Lesotho (?Hettangian-Sinemurian) is an important early representative of Ornithischia. In previous studies it has been recovered in several positions on the ornithischian tree including as the earliest known member of Thyreophora, the earliest known member of Neornithisc...

The history of discovery and interpretation of several dinosaurs collected from quarries near the town of Hastings during the latter half of the 19th century is more complicated than it should be. Samuel Husbands Beckles and Charles Dawson collected several large ornithopod skeletons from this area, but just a few bones from these skeletons were su...

The taxonomy of Wealden-aged iguanodontians is reviewed in the light of recent publications that indicate higher levels of taxonomic diversity existed compared to estimates from the recent past. Of the seventeen taxonomic names that have been suggested to date, four represent taxonomically valid morphological types: Barilium dawsoni, Hypselospinus...

This review summarizes current understanding of the history, anatomy, and taxonomy of British and Belgian iguanodontian dinosaurs. The earliest iguanodontian from this circumscribed region is Berriasian in age and represented by a well-preserved but crushed dentary with many teeth in situ; originally named Iguanodon hoggii Owen, 1874, this specimen...

This contribution reviews all the material that can be assigned to Barilium dawsoni (Lydekker). This includes the holotype, which is described in its entirety for the first time, and a number of referred specimens. The species is re-diagnosed on the basis of a number of unique characters and character combinations. Barilium is a robust (c. 10 m lon...

Species and specimens included in the study. Canine clearance, measured gape, predicted gape, jaw-length and Rshift-values for each species analysed. (DOC)

Sabre-like canines clearly have the potential to inflict grievous wounds leading to massive blood loss and rapid death. Hypotheses concerning sabretooth killing modes include attack to soft parts such as the belly or throat, where biting deep is essential to generate strikes reaching major blood vessels. Sabretoothed carnivorans are widely interpre...

The cranial anatomy of the Lower Jurassic ornithischian dinosaur Heterodontosaurus tucki Crompton & Charig, 1962 is described in detail for the first time on the basis of two principal specimens: the holotype (SAM-PK-K337) and referred skull (SAM-PK-K1332). In addition several other specimens that have a bearing on the interpretation of the anatomy...

BentonM. J. & HarperD. A. T.2009. Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record. xii + 592 pp. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Price £34.50 (paperback). ISBN 978 1 4051 4157 4. - Volume 147 Issue 4 - David Norman

This short review discusses current understanding of the history, anatomy and taxonomy of the lower Wealden Group-aged (Valanginian ̃ 141-137Ma) iguanodontian dinosaurs from southern England. English Wealden iguanodontian taxonomy has been the subject of comment and scrutiny since the latter half of the 19th century. As proposed over two decades ag...

This short review discusses current understanding of the history, anatomy and taxonomy of the lower Wealden Groupaged (Valanginian ~141–137Ma) iguanodontian dinosaurs from southern England. English Wealden iguanodontian taxonomy has been the subject of comment and scrutiny since the latter half of the 19 th century. As proposed over two decades ago...

The predominantly unknown nature and magnitude of the total taphonomic biasing that affects fossil assemblages commonly limits the testing of paleoecological hypotheses by the quantitative comparison of fossil assemblages. Multiple regression analyses of a suite of taphonomic characteristics against a measure of the total taphonomic biasing of a fo...

In 1835 Charles Darwin's geological observations on Isla Santiago (James Island) in the Galápagos Islands led him to important insights as to the process by which different varieties of igneous rock might be produced from the same volcanic vent. His work figured in a tradition of interpretation that began with the work of George Poulett Scrope and...

Cambridge Core - Philosophy of Science - The Cambridge Companion to the 'Origin of Species' - by Robert J. Richards / edited by Michael Ruse

Cambridge Core - Philosophy of Science - The Cambridge Companion to the 'Origin of Species' - by Robert J. Richards / edited by Michael Ruse

Stegosauria is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs characterised by a bizarre array of dermal armour extending, in two parasagittal rows, from the cervical region to the end of the tail. Although Stegosaurus is one of the most familiar of all dinosaurs, little is known regarding the evolutionary history of this clade.Alpha‐level taxonomic revision o...

CHARLES DARWIN AS GEOLOGIST In November 1859, Darwin’s masterpiece, the Origin of Species, was published. Earlier that year, in February, he had been awarded the Wollaston Medal, the highest honour of the Geological Society of London, “for his numerous contributions to Geological Science, more especially his observations on the Geology of South Ame...

BarrettP. M. & BattenD. J. (eds) 2007. Evolution and Palaeobiology of Early Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs. Special Papers in Palaeontology no. 77. 289 pp. London: The Palaeontological Association. Price £75.00 (paperback). ISBN 9781 4051 6933 2. - Volume 145 Issue 6 - David Norman

Heterodontosaurids are an enigmatic group of primitive ornithischian dinosaurs best known from the Early Jurassic of southern Africa. Because fossil material is rare and often poorly preserved, the taxonomy, systematics, and palaeobiology of this clade are controversial. Here we describe a new partial skull of a juvenile Heterodontosaurus tucki fro...

Heterodontosaurids are an enigmatic group of primitive ornithischian dinosaurs best known from the Early Jurassic of southern Africa. Because fossil material is rare and often poorly preserved, the taxonomy, systematics, and palaeobiology of this clade are controversial. Here we describe a new partial skull of a juvenile Heterodontosaurus tucki fro...

Heterodontosaurids are an enigmatic group of primitive ornithischian dinosaurs best known from the Early Jurassic of southern Africa. Because fossil material is rare and often poorly preserved, the taxonomy, systematics, and palaeobiology of this clade are controversial. Here we describe a new partial skull of a juvenile Heterodontosaurus tucki fro...

The preface to this book informs readers that this is the last of a number of edited volumes, focused specifically upon dinosaurs, to be produced by Indiana University Press; these books have emerged under the general umbrella of the ‘Life of the Past’ series that was the brainchild of the general editor James Farlow. I have watched the emergence...

HolmanJ. A.2006. Fossil Salamanders of North America. xv + 232 pp. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Price US $55.00 (hard covers). ISBN 0 253 34732 7. - Volume 145 Issue 4 - David Norman

Dinosaurs have been used extensively to promote science teaching in US universities, in particular, and have spawned a range and variety of course textbooks. These are intentionally self-contained, and aimed specifically at first year ‘non-science majors’; that is to say those undergraduates who are intending to pursue liberal-arts courses in the m...

The type material of the Cretaceous ornithopod Iguanodon orientalis Rozhdestvensky, 1952 is redescribed. The characters which were ori0ginally used to establish a new species are shown to be either incorrect or indistinguishable from Iguanodon bernissartensis Boulenger, 1881. Additional material, previously unrecognized, further confirms the simila...

SYNOPSIS Ornithischia is a familiar and diverse clade of dinosaurs whose global phylogeny has remained largely unaltered since early cladistic analyses in the mid 1980s. Current understanding of ornithischian evolution is hampered by a paucity of explicitly numerical phylogenetic analyses that consider the entire clade. As a result, it is difficult...

The lectotype of the Middle Jurassic theropod dinosaur Megalosaurus bucklandii, a right dentary, can be diagnosed on the basis of two unique characters: a longitudinal groove on the ventral part of the lateral surface of the dentary and a slit-like anterior Meckelian foramen. This taxon, the first dinosaur to be scientifically described, is therefo...

The relative abundances of taxa or skeletal elements in a fossil assemblage can provide important information concerning the palaeoecology and taphonomy of the assemblage. However, these relative abundances must be estimated from samples of the assemblage, rather than measured directly. The sampling error this produces decreases the accuracy with w...

The early Mesozoic fossil fauna collected from the Lower Lufeng Formation of Yunnan Province, China, has attracted considerable interest and attention since its discovery in the late 1930s. Its importance reflected a combination of its comparatively remote geographical position and, more particularly, the similarities of its fauna compared with app...

Although the group played an important role in the evolution of Late Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems, the early evolutionary history of the ornithischian dinosaurs remains poorly understood. Here, we report on a new primitive ornithischian, Eocursor parvus gen. et sp. nov. from the Late Triassic (?Norian) Lower Elliot Formation of South Africa. Eoc...

Previous descriptions of the postcranial skeleton of the primitive stegosaur Huayangosaurus taibaii (Middle Jurassic: People's Republic of China) are insufficient for character determinations in cladistic analysis. Reexamination of the postcranium has revealed several important characters, most of which are retained plesiomorphies that have not bee...

Previous descriptions of the postcranial skeleton of the primitive stegosaur Huayangosaurus taibaii (Middle Jurassic: People's Republic of China) are insufficient for character determinations in cladistic analysis. Reexamination of the postcranium has revealed several important characters, most of which are retained plesiomorphies that have not bee...

Published in October 2005 (rather than 2006 as indicated on the copyright page) this book represents the culmination of a process that started in the late 1980s with the production of a software package (PALSTAT) of numerical statistical techniques appropriate for palaeontologically-oriented problems. This has been elaborated subsequently in the fo...

LUCAS, S. G. 2005. Dinosaurs The Textbook, 5th ed. xxi + 280 pp. Boston: McGraw Hill. Price £97.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 07 282695 9 - - Volume 143 Issue 3 - David Norman

The Sauropods. Evolution and Paleobiology. Kristina A. Curry Rogers and Jeffrey A. Wilson, Eds.. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2005. 359 pp. $65, £41.95. ISBN 0-520-24623-3. The contributors offer a scholarly overview of the biology and evolutionary history of the clade that contains the largest terrestrial vertebrates in Earth's h...

‘The future of research on the past’ outlines how our account of dinosaur extinction has developed. The reign of dinosaurs came to a very abrupt end 65 million years ago. Why? Theories ranged from the elegant to the outlandish, until Walter Alvarez — the palaeobiologist son of an astronomer — examined the levels of cosmic dust in the Earth's crust....

‘New light on Iguanodon’ discusses developments in our knowledge of Iguanodon biology. A massive haul of Iguanodon skeletons fuelled a popular picture of how the creature lived, but was it accurate? Examination of the casts shows that the tail was broken to fit the researchers' bipedal hypothesis, and that Iguanodon actually moved on all fours. Thi...

Dinosaurs: A Very Short Introduction explains the latest findings in dinosaur research and the exciting scientific discoveries that have built up a picture of how dinosaurs looked, what they ate, and how they moved and interacted with each other. This new approach combines many areas of science, such as anatomy, genetics, forensics and engineering...

First published in 1996, this is a classic book about dinosaurs written in an open and accessible way by two experienced authors and, in the second edition, considerably enhanced by the marvellous graphics of the artist John Sibbick (I would buy the book just for the artwork – but I am perhaps biased in that regard). As with the previous edition,...

SÁNCHEZ-VILLAGRA, M. R. & CLACK, J. A. (eds) 2004. Fossils of the Miocene Castillo Formation, Venezuela: Contributions in Neotropical Palaeontology. Special Papers in Palaeontology no. 71. 112 pp. London: The Palaeontological Association. Price £48.00 (paperback). ISBN 0 901702 82 X - - Volume 142 Issue 2 - David Norman

HOLMAN, J. A. 2004. Fossil Frogs and Toads of North America. xv+246 pp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Price US $79.95 (hard covers). ISBN 1 800 842 6796 - - Volume 142 Issue 2 - David Norman

CURRIE, P. J., KOPPELHUS, E. B., SHUGAR, M. A. & WRIGHT, J. L. (eds) 2004. Feathered Dragons. Studies on the Transition from Dinosaurs to Birds. xiii+361 pp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Price US $49.95 (hard covers). ISBN 0 253 34373 9 - - Volume 142 Issue 1 - David Norman

This chapter discusses the anatomy, phylogeny, biogeography, and paleobiology of basal iguanodontians. Basal iguanodontians range from small (2 to 3 m long), lightly built active bipeds, represented by Dryosaurus, to large and robust (10 to 11 m long) facultative quadrupeds such as Iguanodon bernissartensis, with an estimated body mass in excess of...

WILLIAMS, D. M. & FOREY, P. L. (eds) 2004. Milestones in Systematics. The Systematics Association Special Volume Series 67. xvii + 290 pp. Boca Raton, London, New York, Washington D.C.: CRC Press (Taylor & Francis) for the Systematics Association. Price £60.99 (hard covers). ISBN 0 415 28032 X - - Volume 141 Issue 6 - David Norman

This chapter presents a cladistic analysis of the phylogenetic relationships of basal Ornisthischia. Ornithischia is a stem-based taxon defined as all dinosaurs closer to Iguanodon than to Cetiosaurus. Basal ornithischians includes Lesothosaurus, Pisanosaurus, and Technosaurus, Basal ornithischians are small (1-2 m long), obligate bipeds that exhib...

This chapter discusses the anatomy, evolution, paleobiogeography, and paleoecology of basal Thyreophora. Thyreophorans are dinosaurs that have prominent dorsal armor on the body. Basal thyreophorans are represented by Emausaurus ernsti, Scutellosaurus lawleri, and Scelidosaurus harrisonii. They had regular arrangement of dermal armor on their backs...

Ornithopoda is a clade of bipedal and unarmored herbivorous dinosaurs with complex dentitions. It includes the small heterodontosaurids from the Early Jurassic and euornithopods, which range widely in body size and are known from the Middle Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous. This chapter examines the anatomy, phylogeny, and paleobiology of basa...

The Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) Ardley trackway site in Oxfordshire, UK is described in detail. The track site is extensive, containing over 40 more-or-less continuous theropod and sauropod trackways preserved together on a single bedding plane with some trackways up to 180 m in length. The trackways display reasonable preservation, with claw marks...

CLACK, J. A. 2002. Gaining Ground. The Origin and Evolution of Tetrapods. ix + 369 pp. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Price £37.95 (hard covers). ISBN 0 253 34054 3 - - Volume 140 Issue 4 - David Norman

MARTIN, A. J. 2001. Introduction to the Study of Dinosaurs. xiv + 426 pp. Oxford: Blackwell Science. Price £37.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 632 04436 5 - - Volume 140 Issue 3 - David Norman