Peter Galton

University of Bridgeport · College of Naturopathic Medicine

The fossil record of Late Cretaceous non-hadrosaurid neornithischians from the Western Interior of North America is sparse. Parksosaurus warreni is an early Maastrichtian taxon currently known only from a skull and much of the associated postcranial skeleton and a referred isolated tooth from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta, Canada. This...

Bipedal ornithischian dinosaurs from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation are rare, forming only about 15% of the dinosaur specimens. Nevertheless, one of them was among the first dinosaurs named from what was then the ‘’Atlantosaurus Beds’’ of Colorado. Collecting and restudy for 140 years has increased the diversity from the initial 1877 discove...

The supposed base of a slender dermal tail spine from the Inferior Oolite Group (shallow marine deposit, early Middle Jurassic, Aalenian-Bajocian) of Dorset, England, previously reported as "Stegosaurus" and Thyreophora indet., is a half centrum of a caudal vertebra, Archosauria indet. A dorsally and ventrally incomplete vertebra from the same loca...

A stegosaurian "dermal plate" was reported from the Kallamedu Formation (Upper Cretaceous, Maastrichtian) of southern India. However, histologically the dermal plates of stegosaurs, typified by Stegosaurus (Upper Jurassic, USA), have a thin outer cortex enclosing very cancellous bone having large vascular spaces. The Kallamedu fragment of eroded co...

In basal thyreophorans there is no equivalent to the small based slender dermal tail spines of stegosaurs, which differ in several respects from the lateral dorsal spines of nodosaurid ankylosaurs, and large based stocky spikes are restricted to a few genera of stegosaurs. Several isolated spines and spikes from England (Middle and Upper Jurassic),...

The plated dinosaur Stegosaurus longispinus came from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) near Alcova, Wyoming, USA. Only the femur and plaster casts of the posterior pair of long dermal tail spines survived destructive water damage in the 1920s. This surviving material and archival photographs showing the bones in the quarry and as exhibited a...

The holotype of Camptonotus amplus Marsh, 1879, the right pes YPM VP.1879 from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of Wyoming, USA, has long been referred to the Morrison ornithopod dinosaur Camptosaurus Marsh, 1885. However, the pointed proximal end of Mt I did not reach the tarsus, but was attached by ligaments to the mid-shaft of Mt II as in...

A description is provided of the best-represented adult postcranial skeleton of the Heterodontosauridae Kuhn, 1966 (rather than Romer, 1966), that of Heterodontosaurus tucki Crompton & Charig, 1962 (Lower Jurassic, South Africa), SAM-PK-K1332 (total body length ∼1.2 mm, body mass ∼3 kg). With regard to other heterodontosaurids and previous studies...

Two giant partial bone shafts, possible femora, from the Rhaetian Bone Bed (Upper Triassic) of Aust Cliff in SW England continue to conceal their origin. The most striking characteristic of these bones is their size, showing that dinosaur-like gigantism had already evolved by the Late Triassic. Based on their characteristic, columnar shaft morpholo...

The archosaurian bones and teeth from the lower Middle Triassic (Late Anisian) of the English Midlands (Warwick, Leamington, Bromsgrove) are illustrated. Based on the apomorphic characters of the holotype ilium, and of the referred bones, an ischium and vertebrae (mid-cervical, mid- and last dorsals, sacrum, caudal 1), Bromsgroveia walkeri Galton,...

Background: Heterodontosaurids are an important but enigmatic and poorly understood early radiation of ornithischian dinosaurs. The late-surviving heterodontosaurid Fruitadens haagarorum from the Late Jurassic (early Tithonian) Morrison Formation of the western USA is represented by remains of several small (<1 metre total body length, <1 kg body...

Fruitadens haagororum, LACM 128258 right dentary CT reconstruction. Dentary is shown rotating about its longitudinal axis; anterior end is to the left. Elements in the CT reconstructions are colour-coded as follows: dentary, blue; functional teeth, yellow; replacement teeth, orange. The dentary bone has been made transparent in order to better visu...

Skull reconstructions of Heterodontosaurus and Tianyulong illustrating the differing nature of contact between upper and lower tooth rows during jaw closure. Lateral reconstructions of the skulls of Heterodontosaurus tucki (A; based on SAM-PK-K1332) and Tianyulong confuciusi (B; redrawn from [30], areas of breakage shown in gray). Skulls are scaled...

Skull reconstructions of Heterodontosaurus and Tianyulong documenting moment arm lengths for Group 1 and 2 muscles. Heterodontosaurus tucki (A; based on SAM-PK-K1332) and Tianyulong confuciusi (B; redrawn from [30], areas of breakage shown in gray). Skulls are scaled to the same size (basal skull length). Black arrows indicate orientation of Group...

Fruitadens haagororum, LACM 115747 (holotype) right dentary CT reconstruction. Dentary is shown rotating about its longitudinal axis; anterior end is to the left. Elements in the CT reconstructions are colour-coded as follows: dentary, blue; functional teeth, yellow; replacement teeth, orange; internal canals, red. The dentary bone has been made tr...

Fruitadens haagororum, LACM 115747 (holotype) left maxilla CT reconstruction. Maxilla is shown rotating about its longitudinal axis; anterior end is to the left. Elements in the CT reconstructions are colour-coded as follows: maxilla, blue; palatal fragment (vomer?), green; functional teeth, yellow; replacement teeth, orange; internal canals, red....

Measurements of holotype and referred specimens of Fruitadens haagororum . (DOC)

The avian automatic perching mechanism (APM) involves the automatic digital flexor mechanism (ADFM) and the digital tendon-locking mechanism (DTLM). When birds squat on a perch to sleep, the increased tendon travel distance due to flexion of the knee and ankle supposedly causes the toes to grip the perch (ADFM) and engage the DTLM so perching while...

Pereda-Suberbiola, X., Galton, P.M., Mallison, H. & Novas, F. iFirst article. A plated dinosaur (Ornithischia, Stegosauria) from the Early Cretaceous of Argentina, South America: an evaluation. Alcheringa, 1–14. ISSN 0311-5518.A re-evaluation of several vertebrae and dermal plates from the Lower Cretaceous (La Amarga Formation, Puesto Antigual Memb...

The basal part of the crown is described for a very large theropod dinosaur tooth that probably came from the Kirkwood Formation (Lower Cretaceous) of Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. It originated from an animal as large, or possibly larger, than Tyrannosaurus rex, and thus probably represents a new taxon for the Kirkwood fauna and the largest...

Several biologically significant domes of pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs are described and figured. One unusual specimen from the Oldman Formation (Upper Cretaceous) of Alberta is placed into a new genus and another specimen from the same formation is assigned to a new species of Stegoceras. Domes referable to Stegoceras sp. (Judith River and Hell Cr...

In this paper several new significant specimens of pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs from Upper Cretaceous strata of Canada and the United States are described and figured. The domes of an unusual pachycephalosaurid from the Judith River Formation (Campanian) of Alberta show a slightly thickened frontal with an ornamentation of bony tubercles; they are...

Stegosaurus armatus Marsh 1877, based on a partial tail and a very large dermal plate from the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic) of Morrison, Wyoming, USA, is a nomen dubium. Valid Morrison stegosaur species (with possible autapomorphies, dermal “armor” considered if present), with most holotypes consisting of a disarticulated partial postcranial...

Doubt has been cast upon the association of the skull roof and postcranial bones, originally regarded as part of the same individual as the holotype, the left side of the skull, of Leaellynasaura amicagraphica Rich & Rich 1989. The reasons given for these doubts, the form of the prefrontal and the proportions of the supratemporal region being incon...

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Apart from characters of the dentary (proportional shortness, also Saturnalia tupiniquim) and vertebrae of proximal third of tail (posterior position of antero-posteriorly short neural spine on arch, absence of ventral furrowing on centra ; both also Efraasia minor), the bones of very basal sauropodomorphs from the Rhaetian (Upper Triassic) fissure...

The extremes of dinosaur body size have long fascinated scientists. The smallest (<1 m length) known dinosaurs are carnivorous saurischian theropods, and similarly diminutive herbivorous or omnivorous ornithischians (the other major group of dinosaurs) are unknown. We report a new ornithischian dinosaur, Fruitadens haagarorum, from the Late Jurassi...

New age related individual variation for Hypsilophodon foxii, a basal euornithopod with no confirmed record outside of the Isle of Wight (late Barremian), includes an extensor groove on the distal femur that is absent and then shallow. The sequence of fusion of the neurocentral sutures follows the archosaurian caudal forwards pattern but fusion in...

The small ornithopod dinosaur Hypsilophodon foxii, from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) of the Isle of Wight, England, is one of the best known of all dinosaurs; however, the reported presence of dermal armour in this taxon is poorly understood. We reassess the evidence for dermal armour: in all specimens in which they can be identified the plate-...

The Upper Dharmaram Formation (Lower Jurassic, Sinemurian) of India has yielded three sauropodomorph dinosaurs, two new taxa and an indeterminate one. Lamplughsaura dharmaramensis n. gem. and sp., represented by several partial skeletons, is a heavily built quadrupedal form (body length similar to 10 m). Autapomorphies include teeth with strongly e...

Previous discussions of the mode of life of Hypsilophodon (Lower Cretaceous, England) are reviewed, and it is concluded that this primitive ornithopod was cursorial. There are no specific adaptations for an arboreal mode of life, and the hallux was not opposable. Metatarsal I was closely applied along its length to metatarsal II, and the first digi...

Except in a couple of very primitive genera the cheek teeth of ornithischians are inset with a lateral space that was roofed by the overhanging maxilla and floored by the massive dentary. This lateral space was delimited by cheeks and the mouth was small. The cheek muscles were not homologous to the Musculus buccinatoris of mammals, but the functio...

A fundamental question remaining unanswered in dinosaur behavior is whether they had the ability to swim. We report the discovery of an exceptional swimming dinosaur trackway, with 12 consecutive footprints, in lacustrine nearshore sediment from the Early Cretaceous Cameros Basin, La Rioja, Spain. The singular morphology of these footprints strongl...

Numerous isolated bones from a Rhaetian (Upper Triassic) fissure fill in Clifton, Bristol, England have been referred to the basal sauropodomorph Thecodontosaurus Riley & Stutchbury, 1836 (type genus of T. antiquus Riley & Stutchbury vide Owen, 1842). T. caducus Yates, 2003 (Rhaetian or Lower Jurassic fissure fill, South Wales) is based on several...

New discoveries, revision of existing taxa and the application of cladistic analysis have all shed light on the relationships of basal sauropodomorphs. Nevertheless, the interrelationships proposed in recent studies have varied widely, with some authors advocating the view that Prosauropoda and Sauropoda are monophyletic sister-taxa, whereas others...

A skull of Anchisaurus polyzelus (YPM 1883) has been misinterpreted for over 120 years as a result of deformation during preservation and loss of a small piece of the skull block shortly after collection in 1884. The only other skull of this taxon (YPM 209), from a smaller individual, has been largely ignored in previous studies owing to distortion...

Many of the best preserved teeth and bones of archosaurian reptiles found in 1834 in an Upper Triassic Rhaetian fissure fill on Durdham Down in Clifton (now in Bristol), southwest England were destroyed in 1940. Based on an 1875 map, the site is positively identified as within Quarry Steps Quarry. This paper includes an annotated catalogue, copies...

A dinosaur braincase from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) of Oxfordshire (England) is described. The specimen, which has historical significance, has been erratically attributed to either a sauropod or a theropod on the basis of vague phenetic resemblances. It is here re-interpreted in the light of recent cladistic analyses of dinosaurs, allowing t...

The dinosaur Diplodocus has a single, relatively large external bony narial orifice that is positioned far back between the orbits. In some mammals, such as elephants and tapirs, the caudal position of the narial opening is associated with a proboscis, so it has been suggested that Diplodocus possibly also had a trunk. In elephants, the facial nerv...

Teeth of most ornithischian dinosaur genera from the Morrison Formation of the western United States are well known. These include four genera of Thyreophora, the polacanthid ankylosaurs Gargoyleosaurus and Mymoorapelta (only referred tooth of latter probably Ankylosauria incertae sedis), and the stegosaurid stegosaurs Hesperosaurus and Stegosaurus...

Callovosaurus leedsi (Lydekker 1889), based on an isolated femur from the Oxford Clay (Middle Jurassic, Callovian) of Peterborough, England, is reinterpreted as a dryosaurid. It represents the oldest record of this poorly known group of ornithopods. Callovosaurus was previously regarded variously as a hyp-silophodontid, camptosaurid, or iguanodonti...

Autopodial bones from the holotype of the ankylosaur Dracopelta zbyszewskii, from the Upper Jurassic of Portugal, are described for the first time. This material was found in association with a partial rib cage from the Tithonian of Praia do Sul (Assenta), near Torres Vedras and Ribamar da Ericeira (not Ribamar of the Lourinhã area as previously st...

Five shafts of large long bones of dinosaurs have been found since 1846 in the Rhaetic Bone bed of the Westbury Formation (Upper Triassic) at Aust Cliff near Bristol, Avon, southwestern England. Two bones (1 lost) are Dinosauria incertae sedis and a third (also lost), the longest and best preserved, was probably part of a femur of the melanorosauri...

Stegosauria is recognized as a Jurassic clade of Ornithischia. Stegosaurs are medium-sized to large quadrupedal herbivores with proportionally small heads, short and massive forelimbs, long columnar hindlimbs, short metacarpals and metatarsals with hoof-like unguals. The largest stegosaur is Stegosaurus (up to 9 m) and is represented by numerous re...

Stegosaurian remains from the Early Cretaceous (Wealden beds, probably Hauterivian-Barremian) of Aldea del Pinar (Burgos, Spain) are described. The material consists of the ?most posterior dorsal vertebra and a partial dermal plate. The general form of the vertebra, with a massive centrum, a prominent lateral depression and solid neural arch pedice...

La mayor parte de loa rastros de Dinosaurio y sus calcos, de la Formación Berilo Este (Jurásico inferior) del Parque Estatal de Dinosaurios, Rocky Hill, Connecticut, se encuentran a techo de los estratos. Las huellas pertenecen al icongénero Eubrontes y,o a grandes Anchisaunpus, y probablemente fueron hechas por dinosaurios teró- podos. No hay ning...

The vertebrae, pelvic girdle and hind limb bones from the Cambridge Greensand (upper Lower Cretaceous, Albian, Stoliczkaia dispar zone, - 100 mya) near Cambridge, southern England, show that the ornithuran foot-propelled diving bird Enaliornis is a basal hesperonithiform, not a primitive loon. The "proximal ends of ulnae" are reidentified as proxim...

In some sacra of Sellosaurus gracilis (Lower and Middle Stubensandstein, Lowenstein Formation, Germany), the third vertebra is a caudosacral (so S1 + 2 + CS), in the others it is a dorsosacral (so DS + S1 + 2), and no sacra consist of only two vertebrae (S1 + 2). S1 + 2 + CS is the plesiomorphic state for Prosauropoda (and Sauropodomorpha) and DS +...

The holotype of Plateosaurus engelhardti MEYER, 1837 (very incomplete skeleton, Feuerletten [Trossingen Formation]. upper Middle Keuper, Upper Norian, Germany), the rare species, has two autapomorphies: sacral rib 1 originates from complete length of centrum 1 and rib 2 from the posterior 75% of centrum 2 (referred Ellingen individual has distally...

Archival records are used to recreate Marsh's thinking in making the first skeletal reconstruction of Stegosaurus. This reconstruction shows a large, elephantine animal with a paired row of plates along its back, a single row on its tail, and four pairs of spikes on the end of its tail. This eight-spiked tail has long been considered a diagnostic f...

Kurzfassung Spondylosoma absconditum (Ladin, Mitteltrias) fehlen bestimmte Merkmale der Dinosauriformes-Dinosauria, wie ein sigmoidal gebogener Hals mit Epipophysen sowie ein distal ansetzender Deltopectoralkamm auf dem Humerus. Die, welche vorhanden sind (zusätzliche Zwischenwirbelgelenke vom Typ Hyposphen-Hypantrum, drei Sakralwirbel, verlängert...

Autapomorphic characters of Plateosaurus engelhardti MEYER, 1837 (Feuerletten, Frankonia, Bavaria) include sacral rib 2 originating from the posterior 75 % of the centrum and the straightness of the distal part of the femur in antero-posterior views (rib originates from anterior 75 % and femur bowed distally in numerous specimens of Plateosaurus fr...

Re-examination of the surviving specimens of Thecodontosaurus antiquus indicates that this plesiomorphic sauropodomorph can be diagnosed on the basis of elongate basipterygoid processes, a relatively short dentary, and a squared posterior process of the ilium. Although much of the original topotype material found in the 1830s in Bristol, England, h...

The Dinosauria are not characterized by a sacrum with a dorsosacral plus sacrais 1 and 2 because there are two reptilian sacral vertebrae, a plesiomorphic character for Dinosauria, in Herrerasauridae (Upper Triassic) and some individuals of the prosauropod dinosaur Sellosaurus gracilis (?males). A third sacral vertebra, a caudosacral, is present in...

The incomplete skull of the hypsilophodontid dinosaur Bugenasaura infernalis GALTON, 1995 (Hell Creek Formation, late Maastrichtian, South Dakota, USA) is described. Bugenasaura is characterized by a very deeply recessed cheek tooth row and a truncated distal end to the long palpebral (probably for an accessory palpebral). Bugenasaura is included w...

The holotype of the prosauropod dinosaurBlikanasaurus cromptoni Galton & van Heerden 1985, a partial hindlimb, is described from the lower Elliot Formation (Red Beds; Carnian, Upper Triassic) of the Eastern Cape, South Africa.Blikanosaurus, along with the sympatricEuskelosaurus andMelanorosaurus, probably represent the oldest record of the Prosauro...

Plateosaurus (Dimodosaurus) poligniensis (PIDANCET & CHOPARD, 1862) has a typical S-shaped femur and the bones are very similar to those of Plateosaurus from Trossingen Germany. "Gresslyosaurus cf. plieningeri" from Poligny has a straight distal part to the femur, as in material from Ellingen, Bavaria, Germany that has been referred to Plateosaurus...

The holotype of the large prosauropod Camelotia borealis GALTON from the basal Westbury Formation (Rhaetic, Upper Triassic) of Wedmore, Somerset, England is illustrated in detail. The femur has two synapomorphic characters of the Melanorosauridae, the lesser trochanter of the femur is sheet-like and the transverse width of the shaft at mid-length i...

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New material of Melanorosaurus readi HAUGHTON, 1924 from the Carnian of the Cape Province represents two incomplete specimens of this early prosauropod. The species is more lightly built than the somewhat younger M. thabanensis GAUFFRE, 1993 a from Lesotho and the South American melanorosaurid Riojasaurus BONAPARTE 1969. The sixth cervical vertebra...

The cranial anatomy is described for the basal hypsilophodontid dinosaur Thescelosaurus neglectus GILMORE (1913), the only valid species. Two characters that have been used to separate the other hypsilophodontids from Thescelosaurus, the midorbital width of the frontals and the steepness of the braincase, probably had a more complicated evolutionar...

The tooth of "Thecodontosaurus" from the Bromsgrove Sandstone Formation (Middle Triassic) of Leamington, Warwickshire, is referred to the Parasuchia (phytosaurian thecodontian), as are part of a large ilium and several of the teeth from Warwick (but two are from the poposaurid thecodontian Bromsgroveia). A partial posterior cervical vertebra is ver...

The material of the earliest poposaurid rauisuchian, Bromsgroveia walkeri, is described from the Bromsgrove Sandstone Formation (Middle Triassic) of the central Midlands of England. The structure of the ilium is less derived than it is in Lythrosuchus and much less so than in Poposaurus (both Upper Triassic, southwestern USA). Teratosaurus suevicus...

Dinosauria from the Upper Campanian-Maastrichtian of Beira Lioeral, western Portugal include a sauropod, a carnosaur, maniraptoran coelurosaurs, and the fabrosaurid ornithischian Taveirosaurus (originally described as a pachycephalosaurid, also known from Maastrichtian of Lano, Spain). Teeth originally described as ornithopod are tentatively referr...

The fragmentary skull of Struthiosaurus austriacus Bunzel from the Campanian Gosau Beds of Austria, recently regarded as a theropod dinosaur, is reinterpreted as that of an immature nodosauriid ankylosaur. Struthiosaurus is definitely characterized by small size and by the ventrally projecting shape on the basisphenoid bone. -Authors

The braincase of the Early Cretaceous bird Enaliornis is indicative of a primitive avian brain with a relatively large medulla oblongata, a small cerebellum, small cerebral hemispheres broadly separated from the labyrinth, and a strong basilordotic bend of the whole brain, the latter being characteristic of an airencephalic skull. The reduction of...

The remains of the omithomimid dinosaur Archaeomithomimus asiaticus from the Upper Cretaceous of the People's Republic of China are described and comparisons made with the bones of Elaphrosaurus, Gallimimus, Struthiomimus, Ornithomimus, Dromiceiomimus, Deinocheirus, and Allosaurus. The diagnosis of the Ornithomimidae of Russell (1972) is expanded t...

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The Lower Cretaceous (Albian) Griman Creek Fm. at Lightning Ridge, New South Wales, Australia, has yielded seven partial femora of hypsilophodontid ornithopods. Six of these femora represent a member of the hypsilophodont group of the Hypsilophodontidae. Similarities of the structure of the medial condyle and popliteal region indicate reference to...