Abstract
THERE have just been placed on exhibition in the Geological Department of the British Museum (Natural History) the remains of a Stegosaur or armoured deinosaur, obtained by the late W. E. Cutler from the Belly River sandstone of the Red Deer River, Alberta. Baron Nopcsa, who will soon publish a description of the specimen, believes that it represents a new genus; but in any case it is closely allied to Panoplosaurus (Lambe) and Ankylosaurus (Barnum Brown) from the same beds, and is not very unlike Polacanthus (Owen) from the Wealden of the Isle of Wight. The chief interest of the specimen lies in the preservation of the plated skin still in position over the greater part of the skeleton. The bony plates range from large broad-based spikes, presumably covered with horn in life, to minute specks in the wrinkled skin of the neck. The skin of the under surface has left no trace and was no doubt relatively thin. The vertebrae of the back lie in a straight line, and the ribs were probably fused to them, as in Ankylosaurus. The sacral vertebrae are fused to one another^ The vertebrae of the neck and tail were movable. The limb-girdles are clearly shown, and the large bones of the left fore-limb clearly retain their natural position, indicating a squat posture with a bend at the elbow, so that the height at the shoulder was only about three feet. The left hind-limb has been bent over the belly, and is almost complete. The skull is missing. The length of the fossil is 15 feet, and its breadth 6 feet. In the absence of jaws and teeth, the feeding habits must be inferred from those parts in allied forms. Baron Nopcsa holds the view that the creature roamed a sandy desert and lived on occasional swarms of locusts; the museum labels adopt the more. usual interpretation of the Stegosaur teeth as adapted for vegetable food.
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News and Views. Nature 118, 421–425 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118421a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118421a0