Xenoposeidon Earliest Rebbachisaurid from England

[Troodon]

Xenoposeidon proneneukos is a sauropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Hastings Group of England. It is represented by a single partial dorsal vertebra, NHMUK PV R2095, which consists of the centrum and the base of a tall neural arch.  

 

https://peerj.com/articles/5212/

Taylor MP. (2018) Xenoposeidon is the earliest known rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur. PeerJ 6:e5212

 

 

 

[digit]

Always amazes me that there is someone who knows sauropod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous Hastings Group of England so intimately that they can describe a new species based on a single vertebra that looks different. That is some deep knowledge there!

 

I've been involved in the naming of several new species (mostly fishes) and currently have a new species that is waiting (seemingly forever) on the paperwork to be completed to register of one of our type specimens before we can publish the description of our latest. There is a whole lot more needed to publish an extant species than a distantly extinct one. Granted, there should be a lot more specimens of a living species that can be collected and analyzed and then there is also the advantage of DNA analysis to further prove a novel species. Things must be so different when fleshing out the lineage of taxonomic tree when there are so few clues to work with.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken