Topic
Macrurosaurus
About: Macrurosaurus is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2 publications have been published within this topic receiving 26 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: About twelve years ago the Woodwardian Museum acquired a series of some 25 associated and successive caudal vertebræ, found at one of the deeper phosphatite washings on Coldham Common, Barnwell, which were arranged in a continuous series.
Abstract: About twelve years ago the Woodwardian Museum acquired from Mr. W. Farren a series of some 25 associated and successive caudal vertebrae, found at one of the deeper phosphatite washings on Coldham Common, Barnwell. At the same date, the Rev. W. Stokes Shaw, M.A., Caius College, obtained from a similar working at Barton, a locality a few miles westward, another associated series of 15 smaller vertebrae showing identical characters, and of such size as to exactly join on to the first series and complete the tail. These latter vertebrae, not improbably part of the same individual, being presented to the Museum, I arranged both sets in a continuous series. Very few appear to be missing in any part of the sequence, though the extremity of the tail is probably not preserved, and there are no means of estimating how many vertebrae may have intervened between the last of the sacral region and the earliest caudal which is preserved. The tail probably included 50 vertebrae, and may have reached a length of 15 feet, which would have amounted to one half the length of the animal if the proportions of modem crocodiles obtained. A few isolated vertebrae have also been collected; but no distinctive portions of the skeleton have come under my notice. The affinities of the animal are at present somewhat obscure; for the only available data from which a determination could be made are the following facts:- The articulation of the earlier vertebrae is procœlous; this character gradually changes
16 citations
TL;DR: The remains of Dinosaurs were for many years very rarely met with in the Cambridge Upper Greensand; and several important parts of the skeleton have never yet been found as mentioned in this paper. But a considerable collection of more than 500 bones is now preserved in the Woodwardian Museum alone; and since the greater number of these fossils have been discovered in larger or smaller sets of naturally associated remains, they afford evidence on which it is possible to establish many species which belong to several genera.
Abstract: Introductory Note. The remains of Dinosaurs were for many years very rarely met with in the Cambridge Upper Greensand; and several important parts of the skeleton have never yet been found. But a considerable collection of more than 500 bones is now preserved in the Woodwardian Museum alone; and since the greater number of these fossils have been discovered in larger or smaller sets of naturally associated remains, each of which is obviously a portion of the skeleton of a single individual, they afford evidence on which it is possible to establish many species which belong to several genera. Occasionally the series of remains is sufficiently large to give grounds for a conjectural reconstruction of the animal; but more frequently the bones are limited to a few caudal vertebrae; and even the larger sets of associated bones come chiefly from the caudal and sacral regions of the vertebral column. With the exception of Macrurosaurus , already described, and also known from a long sequence of large caudal vertebrae, all the remains indicate animals of small or of moderate size, varying between the magnitudes of a sheep and an ox. The majority of the species were characterized by possessing comparatively short tails; though one animal, at least, had a tail in which the vertebrae were more than usually elongated. These remains possess a peculiar interest in being the latest known representatives of the Dinosauria in British geological deposits; and they help to define the limits within which the osteological structure of the
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Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 1879 | 1 |
| 1876 | 1 |