Mantellisaurus

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Mantellisaurus
Temporal range:
Ma
Holotype skeleton, Natural History Museum, London
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: †Ornithischia
Clade: †Ornithopoda
Clade: †
Hadrosauriformes
Genus: †Mantellisaurus
Paul, 2007
Species:
†M. atherfieldensis
Binomial name
†Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis
(Hooley, 1925)
Synonyms
  • Heterosaurus neocomiensis? Cornuel, 1850
  • Vectisaurus valdensis
    Hulke, 1879
  • Iguanodon atherfieldensis Hooley, 1925
  • Dollodon bampingi Paul, 2008
  • Proplanicoxa galtoni Carpenter & Ishida, 2010
  • Mantellodon carpenteri Paul, 2012

Mantellisaurus is a

paraphyletic. It is known from many complete and almost complete skeletons. The genus name honours Gideon Mantell
, the discoverer of Iguanodon.

History of discovery

Discovery and naming of the holotype

Drawing of the holotype skull from Hooley's original description

The

Reginald Walter Hooley in 1914 in the upper Vectis Formation of southern England and reported upon in 1917. He posthumously named it Iguanodon atherfieldensis in 1925. Atherfield is the name of a village on the southwest shore of the Isle of Wight where the fossil was found.[1]

The Maidstone specimen and "Mantellodon"

Mantell's "Iguanodon" restoration based on the Maidstone Mantellodon remains

The Maidstone specimen was discovered in a quarry in

Lower Greensand Formation). In June 1834 it was acquired for £25 by scientist Gideon Mantell.[2] He was led to identify it as an Iguanodon based on its distinctive teeth. The Maidstone slab was utilized in the first skeletal reconstructions and artistic renderings of Iguanodon, but due to its incompleteness, Mantell made some mistakes, the most famous of which was the placement of what he thought was a horn on the nose.[3]

Shortly after the discovery, tension began to build between Mantell and Richard Owen, an ambitious scientist with much better funding and society connections in the turbulent worlds of Reform Act–era British politics and science. Owen, at the time a firm creationist, opposed the early versions of evolutionary science ("transmutationism") then being debated and used what he would soon coin as dinosaurs as a weapon in this conflict. With the paper describing Dinosauria, he scaled down dinosaurs from lengths of over 61 metres (200 ft), determined that they were not simply giant lizards, and put forward that they were advanced and mammal-like, characteristics given to them by God; according to the understanding of the time, they could not have been "transmuted" from reptiles to mammal-like creatures.[4][5]

Lithograph of the Maidstone specimen

In 1849, a few years before his death in 1852, Mantell realised that the genus today known as Mantellodon was not a heavy, pachyderm-like animal,[6] as Owen was putting forward, but had slender forelimbs; however, his passing left him unable to participate in the creation of the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, and so Owen's vision of the dinosaurs became that seen by the public for decades.[4] With Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, Owen had nearly two dozen lifesize sculptures of various prehistoric animals built out of concrete sculpted over a steel and brick framework; two Mantellodon, one standing and one resting on its belly, were included. Before the sculpture of the standing Mantellodon was completed, a banquet for twenty was held inside it.[7][8][9]

The discovery of much better specimens of Iguanodon bernissartensis in later years revealed that the horn was actually a modified thumb. Still encased in rock, the Maidstone skeleton is currently displayed at the

formation than the original I. mantelli/I. anglicus material.[11] The Maidstone specimen, also known as Gideon Mantell's "Mantel-piece", and formally labelled NHMUK 3741[12]
was subsequently excluded from Iguanodon.

It was classified as cf. Mantellisaurus by McDonald (2012),

Darwinsaurus and entirely incorrect, noting that no dentary is preserved in the holotype specimen, and that the preserved forelimb elements "are gracile, carpals are not preserved, the metacarpals are elongate and slender, and a thumb spike is not preserved". Norman considered the holotype specimen of Mantellodon carpenteri to be referable to the species Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis.[13]

In 2021, a sculpture nicknamed Iggy the Iguanodon based on the Maidstone specimen was unveiled at the

Maidstone East station. The dinosaur is also featured in Maidstone's coat of arms, and is the only dinosaur featured in a borough's coat of arms in the UK.[14][15]

Specimen IRSNB 1551 and "Dollodon"

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences

Specimen IRSNB 1551 from the

Iguanodon mantelli by George Albert Boulenger in 1881, but was in 1986 thought to pertain to Iguanodon atherfieldensis by David Bruce Norman. The specimen was assigned to its own genus and species, Dollodon bampingi, by Gregory S. Paul in 2008. The genus was named after Dollo, who first described the remains, and the specific name
was in honour of popular science writer Daniel Bamping, who assisted Paul in his investigations.

Paul noted several differences between the Mantellisaurus type (NHMUK R5764) and IRSNB 1551. The Mantellisaurus type had proportionally shorter forelimbs with a larger pelvis and he argued it was probably more bipedal, whereas IRSNB 1551 was more likely to be quadrupedal. Paul also noted that the snout and trunk of IRSNB 1551 were proportionally longer than the Mantellisaurus type specimen.[16]

The validity of Dollodon has since been disputed. In 2010,

Iguanodon seelyi, a species based on BMNH R 28685 from Wessex Formation, England.[17] Likewise, David B. Norman and Andrew McDonald do not consider Dollodon a valid genus or species and instead include it with Mantellisaurus.[18][19][20]

Sauerland specimens

In 1971, a fossiliferous karstic sinkhole clay deposit was found at a quarry just south-west of the village of Nehden near Brilon in Sauerland, Germany containing numerous disarticulated iguanodontid remains predominantly of Mantellisaurus with lesser quantities of Iguanodon, alongside other fragmentary dinosaur and crocodylian material.[21]

Iberian specimens

Mantellisaurus is known from several localities in Spain. With an articulated hindlimb known from Las Hoyas[22] A specimen is known from the Rubielos de Mora 1 locality in Spain.[23] Three specimens are known from the Arcillas de Morella Formation.[24][23][25]

Description

Restoration based on the holotype specimen, NHMUK R5764.

Mantellisaurus was a lightly constructed

iguanodont. Compared to Iguanodon bernissartensis, Mantellisaurus was smaller, estimated at 750 kilograms (1,650 lb) in weight. Its forelimbs were proportionally shorter than those of I. bernissartensis. In Mantellisaurus the forelimbs were about half the length of the hindlimbs whereas they were about 70 percent the length of the hindlimbs in I. bernissartensis. Due to the short length of its forelimbs and the shortness of its body, Paul proposed that it was primarily bipedal, only going on all fours when standing still or moving slowly.[16]

Classification

Maidstone East Train Station

The cladogram below follows an analysis by Andrew McDonald, 2012.[26]

Styracosterna

Uteodon aphanoecetes

Hippodraco scutodens

Theiophytalia kerri

Iguanacolossus fortis

Lanzhousaurus magnidens

Kukufeldia tilgatensis

Barilium dawsoni

Hadrosauriformes

Iguanodon bernissartensis

Hadrosauroidea

Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis

Other hadrosauroids

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2011.03.002
    .
  2. ^ Norman, D.B. (1993). "Gideon Mantell's "Mantel-piece": the earliest well-preserved ornithischian dinosaur". Modern Geology. 18: 225–245.
  3. ^ Mantell, Gideon A. (1834). "Discovery of the bones of the Iguanodon in a quarry of Kentish Rag (a limestone belonging to the Lower Greensand Formation) near Maidstone, Kent". Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 17: 200–201.
  4. ^ a b Torrens, Hugh. "Politics and Paleontology". The Complete Dinosaur, 175–190.
  5. ^ Owen, R. (1842). "Report on British Fossil Reptiles: Part II". Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1841. 1842: 60–204.
  6. OCLC 8415138
    .
  7. ISBN 0-312-26226-4
    .
  8. JSTOR 991149
    .
  9. ^ Norman, David B. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs. p. 11.
  10. ISBN 0-14-021288-4
    .
  11. ^ Olshevsky, G. "Re: Hello and a question about Iguanodon mantelli (long)". Retrieved 11 February 2007.
  12. ^
    ISBN 978-0-253-35721-2
    .
  13. ^ David B. Norman (2013). "On the taxonomy and diversity of Wealden iguanodontian dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Ornithopoda)" (PDF). Revue de Paléobiologie, Genève. 32 (2): 385–404.
  14. ^ Smith, Alan (2021). "Public art - the hits and misses". Kent Online.
  15. ^ "Dinosaur returns to town after 125 million years". Kent Online. n.d. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  16. ^
    doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2007.04.009
    .
  17. doi:10.5209/rev_JIGE.2010.v36.n2.3
    .
  18. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2489.1.3
    .
  19. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2011.03.002
    .
  20. ^ Norman, D.B., 2012, "Iguanodontian Taxa (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Lower Cretaceous of England and Belgium". In: Pascal Godefroit (ed.), Bernissart Dinosaurs and Early Cretaceous Terrestrial Ecosystems. Indiana University Press. 464 pp. http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=800408
  21. S2CID 22329180
    .
  22. S2CID 128954152
    .
  23. ^ a b Ruiz-Omeñaca, J. I.; Canudo, J. I.; Cuenca-Bescós, G. (1998). "Sobre las especies de Iguanodon (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) encontradas en el Cretácico inferior de España [On the species of Iguanodon (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) found in the Lower Cretaceous of Spain]". Geogaceta. 24: 275–278.
  24. ^ J. M. Gasulla, F. Ortega, F. Escaso and A. Pérez-García. 2011. Los yacimientos de vertebrados de la Formación Arcillas de Morella (Aptiense inferior) [The vertebrate localities of the Arcillas Formation of Morella (lower Aptian)]. In A. Pérez-García, F. Gascó, J. M. Gasulla, & F. Escaso (eds.), Viajando a Mundos Pretéritos 157-171
  25. ISSN 0195-6671
    .
  26. PMID 22629328
    .

Literature
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