Talk:Dacentrurus

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Plates and spikes

From what I know, a single plate fragment and two broken spines are known from D. armatus. Why is this text so detailed and adament about the exact layout of Dacentrurus armor being similar to Kentrosaurus? I have a very hard time believing we can be _that_ sure about the arrangement of D.'s armor. 94.246.3.74 (talk) 16:59, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed the known material is limited to a neck plate and, in fact, a single spike (the spike base pair is from D. hastiger). Images in popular-science books are largely speculative.--MWAK (talk) 08:37, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

0_0

10m? Really? Spinodontosaurus (talk) 13:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can find 8 m at this time, but Dacentrurus was certainly not a lightweight. Stegosaurs are a bit awkward to measure, given the bend of the front of the torso. J. Spencer (talk) 23:24, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The ten metre length estimated by Naish in his posting is apparently due to his misremembering the dimensions of the pelvis. The holotype is not 1.5 metre wide across the acetabula — this would result in a twelve metre long monster — but across the preacetabular iliac blades. This takes off a third and again results in an eight metre long animal. Still among the largest of stegosaurians, of course.--MWAK (talk) 08:43, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dacentrurus taxonomy

Maidment et. al. (2008) restricted Dacentrurus armatus to the holotype (NHM UK 46013) and concluded that Omosaurus hastiger was an indeterminate thyreophoran. They assigned Omosaurus phillipsi and Astrodon pusillus to Dinosauria indet. and Omosaurus lennieri to Dacentrurus sp. Furthermore, the description of Miragaia Mateus et. al. 2009 from Portugal calls into question previous records of Dacentrurus from the Late Jurassic of Portugal by de Lapparent and Zbyszewski (1957) and Galton (1991). Until better stegosaur material from Late Jurassic rocks in Spain, Portugal, and France is uncovered, the name Dacentrurus should apply only to the holotype.

de Lapparent, A. F. & Zbyszewski, G. 1957. Les dinosauriens du Portugal. M´emoires des Services G´eologiques du Portugal, nouvelle s´erie, 2: 1–63.

Galton, P.M., 1991. Postcranial remains of the stegosaurian dinosaur Dacentrurus from the Upper Jurassic of France and Portugal. Geologica et Paleontologica 25: 299–327.

Mateus, Octávio; Maidment, Susannah C.R.; and Christiansen, Nicolai A. (2009). "A new long-necked 'sauropod-mimic' stegosaur and the evolution of the plated dinosaurs" (pdf). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 276 (1663): 1815–1821.

Maidment, Susannah C.R.; Norman, David B.; Barrett, Paul M.; and Upchurch, Paul (2008). "Systematics and phylogeny of Stegosauria (Dinosauria: Ornithischia)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 6 (4): 1. doi:10.1017/S1477201908002459.Extrapolaris (talk) 18:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)Vahe Demirjian[reply]

In this context it should perhaps be pointed out that Dacentrurus lennieri cannot be made an unnamed Dacentrurus sp. because it already is a named species. If both Dacentrurus and a separate species its name cannot be other than Dacentrurus lennieri--MWAK (talk) 14:26, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Omosaurus?

What crocodilian is Omosaurus? It is not in Wikipedia... 31.11.242.231 (talk) 09:42, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. It is now :o).--MWAK (talk) 14:37, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]