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Appendix
Bactrosaurus
Taxon: Lambeosaurinae
Name means: “club
or spined lizard”
Pronounced: BACK-truh-SAW-rus
Length: 13 –
20 ft (4 – 6 m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
c. 99 – 65 milion years ago
Place: China, Mongolia
Bactrosaurus is
one of the oldest duckbills ever discovered. Strong and sturdy, this
primitive plant-eater was found by an expedition from the American Museum
of Natural History and was named by Gilmore in 1933 for the high, club-shaped
spines of its vertebrae. Because Bactrosaurus bears a striking resemblance
to more recent North American hadrosaurs, it lends support to the theory
that dinosaurs migrated from Asia to North America via a now submerged
land bridge between the continents.
Bagaceratops
Taxon: Protoceratopidae
Name means: “small
horned face”
Pronounced: BAG-a-SER-uh-TOPS
Length: 3 ft (1
m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
84 – 71 milion years ago
Place: Mongolia
This small, ancient
horned dinosaur had a relatively small frill over its neck laced with
tiny openings. Skulls of the primitive plant-eater were discovered in
the Gobi Desert by an expedition led by female Polish scientists. Bagaceratops
was named in 1975. Measuring only 3 feet long, it was likely smaller
than other similar protoceratopsids.
Bagaraatan
Taxon: Coelurosauria
Name means: “small
hunter” or “little predator”
Pronounced: BAH-gah-RAH-than
Length: 10 ft (3
m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
c. 71 – 65 milion years ago
Place: Mongolia
A fairly small predator
from the Nemegt of southern Mongolia. Named in 1996, this agile meat-eating
theropod was probably only 10 feet long. It prowled and hunted the wilds
of ancient Asia about 75 million years ago.
Bahariasaurus
Doubtful classification.
Named in 1934 for the Baharija Formation or the Baharîya Oasis
in northern Egypt where it was discovered. The only known fossils of
this predatory Late Cretaceous dinosaur were destroyed in World War
II.
Barapasaurus
Taxon: Sauropoda
Name means: “big
leg lizard”
Pronounced: buh-RAP-us-SAW-rus
Length: 60 ft (18
m)
Time: Early Jurassic,
190 – 180 million years ago
Place: India
This early sauropod
was a browser with spoon-shaped teeth and slender legs. “Big”
referred to the length of the dinosaur’s femur (more than 1.7
meters long), one of the first Barapasaurus bones that was excavated
when it was discovered in 1961. More than 300 individuals have since
been found in the Godavari Valley of southern India.
Barosaurus
Taxon: Diplodocidae
Name means: “heavy
lizard”
Pronounced: BAYR-uh-SAW-rus
Length: 65 –
89 ft (20 – 27 m)
Time: Late Jurassic,
154 – 144 milion years ago
Place: Western North
America, East Africa (Tanzania)
This whip-tailed
sauropod is a relatively rare discovery, even today, and was the first
dinosaur found in the bone-rich beds of South Dakota. More than 60 feet
long, the lumbering plant may have been able to rise on its hind legs
to stand even taller than when it stood on all four. A Barosaurus display
in this upright pose stands in the American Museum of Natural History
for public study. Barosaurus was named by Othniel Charles Marsh. Unlike
many sauropods, juvenile bones are known from this genus.
Barsboldia
Doubtful name. Named
in honor of the Mongolian paleontologist Rinchen Barsbold, this hadrosaur
was similar to Corythosaurus.
Baryonyx
Taxon: Spinosauria
Name means: “heavy
claw”
Pronounced: BAYR-ee-ON-icks
Length: 30 ft (9
m)
Time: Early Cretaceous,
127 – 121 milion years ago
Place: England
This impressive
meat-eater was likely a masterful fisherman. It was first discovered
in a British claypit in 1983. A nearly complete skeleton was recovered
by the British Museum of Natural History, including a crocodile-like
snout full of sharp teeth and enormous, hooked thumb talons nearly a
foot long. The claws on the manus or hand of this bipedal dinosaur may
have been used to spear fish, because fish scales were found inside
the stomach.
Becklespinax
Taxon: Theropoda
Name means: “Beckles’
spined one”
Pronounced: BECK-ul-SPYE-nacks
Length: estimated
16 – 26 ft (5 – 8 m)
Time: Early Cretaceous,
137 – 121 milion years ago
Place: England
Because so little
of this dinosaur was discovered --- only three massive vertebrae with
high spines --- little is actually known about it. Comparison with vertebrae
of meat eating dinosaurs like South American carnivore Piatnizkysaurus
suggests Becklespinax was a theropod. This high-spined predator was
named in honor of its discoverer, Samuel Husband Beckles.
Beelemodon
Invalid name. Called
"omnivorouscarnivorous" by its describer.
[Scholastic requests
clarification]
Beipiaosaurus
Taxon: Therizinosauria
Name means: “Beipiao
lizard,” after Beipiao (a city in China)
Pronounced: bay-pyow-SAW-rus
Length: over 7 feet
(2.2 m)
Time: Early Cretaceous,
c. 124 milion years ago
Place: China
Found in an ancient
lakebed in northeastern China, this theropod is best known for traces
of soft tissue fossil impressions, including what appear to be feather-like
filament impressions near the legs, arms and shoulders. The skull of
Beipiaosaurus is larger than those of most other therizinosaur species,
but like them the feet have three rather than four toes.
Bellusaurus
Taxon: Sauropoda
Name means: “fine
lizard”
Pronounced: BEL-uh-SAW-rus
Length: 16 ft (5
m)
Time: Middle Jurassic,
159 – 154 milion years ago
Place: China
Named in 1990 for
the remarkable quality of its bone preservation, this small sauropod
was apparently a juvenile when it died. Chinese scientists discovered
more than a dozen skeletons in the quarry, and several included the
skulls, which are rarely preserved because they are so fragile. It seems
Bellusaurus had nostrils on either side of its head.
Betasuchus
Doubtful name. This meat-eater may be an abelisaur.
Name means: Beta
(for the second letter of the Greek alphabet) crocodile
Pronounced: BAY-tuh-SOO-kus
Length: Unknown
time: Late Cretaceous
place: Netherlands
. Originally described by British scientist Harry Grovier as a species
of Megalosaurus, this modest fossil discovery --- a single, incomplete
leg bone --- was redefined as an ornithomimid by German paleontologist
Friedrich von Huene in 1932. This bipedal dinosaur may have been one
of the only ostrich-like ornithomimids in Europe. Its size is unknown.
Bihariosaurus
Taxon: Iguanodontia
Name means: “Bihor
lizard,” after the Bihor County region of the Carpathean
Mountains.
Pronounced: bi-HAHR-ee-o-SAW-rus
Length: about 10
ft (3 m)
Time: Late Jurassic,
99 – 94 milion years ago
Place: Romania
Though the exact
size of this bulky plant eater isn’t known, due to the limited
number of fossils found, it was likely a member of the Iguanodontid
family. Only teeth and scattered fragments were found in a mine in Romania.
Blikanasaurus
Taxon: Sauropodomorpha
Name means: “Blikana
lizard,” Mount Blikana region of South Africa
Pronounced: bli-KAN-uh-SAW-rus
Length: about 10
– 16 ft (3 – 5 m)
Time: Late Triassic,
c. 220 milion years ago
Place: Lesotho,
South Africa
This early plant
eater was a stout prosauropod, capable of walking on all four legs and
perhaps of rearing up onto its two hind legs. Most scientists believe
Blikanasaurus was genetically close to the ancestors of the sauropods.
Named in 1965, the size is uncertain due to the incomplete nature of
the find.
Borogovia
Taxon: Troodontidae
Name means: “borogove”
(a fictional creature)
Pronounced: bor-o-GOH-vee-a
Length: 6 ft (2
m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
c. 70 milion years ago
Place: Mongolia
Small and nimble,
but large brained and bright, this quick biped had one of the longest
shin bones of all troodontid species --- measuring about 11 inches.
Like most troodontids, Borogovia’s second toe on the foot was
strongly clawed and had to be kept raised off the ground. In this way
it was always a razor sharp weapon. Borogovia probably fed on meat and
insects. It was named after creatures appearing in Alice in Wonderland
author Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky.”
Bothriospondylus
Taxon: Sauropod
Name menas: “little
ditch” or “trench-backed”
Pronounced: BAH-three-uh-SPON-di-lus
Length: Unknown
Time: Late Jurassic
Place: Madagascar
In 1875 Sir Richard
Owen described this long necked sauropod based on part of the backbone
from the hip region. He believed the plant eater was the only dinosaur
with large openings in its backbone. Today, this condition is known
to be shared by all sauropod dinosaurs.
Brachiosaurus
Taxon: Sauropoda
Name means: “armed
lizard”
Pronounced: BRACK-ee-uh-SAW-rus
Length: about 72
– 98 ft (22 – 30 m)
Time: Late Jurassic,
154 – 144 million years ago
Place: Colorado,
Europe, Tanzania
Named for its long
humerus bone, this well known, enormous sauropd had an almost giraffe-like
posture due to its high neck, unusually long front legs and relatively
short hindlimbs. Though it was named and defined by Riggs in 1903, based
on a near complete fossil skeleton, Brachiosaurus is among the rarest
of all large, plant eating sauropods. First collected in 1990 near Fruita,
Colorado, more information about Brachiosaurus became known after scientists
found other specimens in Tanzania, Africa. Nostrils on top of the skull
have at various times been thought to be snorkels, spaces that amplified
sound or enhanced the sense of smell, or even helped to cool the Brachiosaurus’
skull in times of extreme heat. Brachiosaurus probably wasn’t
a swift runner, but it could easily access its leafy food from the high
forest canopies of the late Jurassic.
Brachyceratops
Taxon: Centrosaurinae
Name means: “short
horned face”
Pronounced: BRACK-I-SER-uh-tops
Length: sub-adult,
6 ft (1.8 m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
71 – 65 milion years ago
Place: Montana
Charles Whitney
Gilmore, a scientist from the Smithsonian Institute, first collected
this small, horned ceratopsian in Montana’s Glacier County in
1913. The plant eating browser had small brow and nose horns with a
slight upward curve. Gilmore originally found five small Brachyceratops
near a sixth specimen nearly twice their size. Some paleontologists
suggest that Brachyceratops may in fact just be the young of either
Achelousaurus or Einiosaurus. The horns and frills of ceratopsians changed
dramatically as they grew up, so a juvenile’s skull might not
always match that of the adult.
Brachylophosaurus
Taxon: Hadrosaurinae
Name means: “short
crest lizard”
Pronounced: BRAK-i-LOH-fuh-SAW-rus
Length: 23 ft (7
m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
c. 86 – 80 million years ago
Place: Alberta,
Canada and Montana
This duckbilled
dinosaur had a low, solid crest with a short spike behind its eyes.
This spike may have been part of a Brachylophosaurus head-butting ritual,
but it is more likely that it was simply used as a way to identify other
members of the same species. It has longer forelimbs than some other
plant-eating duckbill species. Named by C.M. Sternberg in 1953.
Bradycneme:
Taxon: Unknown
Name means: “slow,
heavy-legged”
Pronounced: BRAY-dee-kuh-NEE-mee
Length: Unknown
Time: Late Cretaceous
Place: Romania
Originally identified
as a giant owl, this small carnivore is actually a theropod, though
its size is uncertain. Found by Lady Smith-Woodward in Transylvania
is 1923, it was named by two British scientists, Harrison and Walker.
Breviceratops
Taxon: Ceratopsia
Name means: “short
horned face”
Pronounced: BREV-i-SER-a-tops
Length: 6.6 ft (2
m)
Time: Late Cretaceous,
86 – 71 million years ago
Place: Mongolia
and China
This protoceratopsian
had a stout snout and a small, flattened horn or horn-like bump on its
nose. Many babies of this dinosaur, which was named in 1990, have been
recovered from rocks that are generally considered as younger than those
where Proceratops is found.
Brontoraptor
Invalid name. No information available.
Brontosaurus
Name means: “thunder
lizard”
Pronounced: BRON-tuh-SAW-rus
See APATOSAURUS.
Named for its great
size and powerful build ("one of the largest reptiles yet discovered"),
similar in meaning to Marsh's earlier mammal name Brontotherium "thunder
beast" (1873). Brontes was also the name of a giant in Greek mythology.
Contrary to a common explanation for the name, Marsh did not indicate
that his "thunder lizard" was supposed to make a sound like
thunder when it walked. He recognized that his Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus
were closely related, but distinguished the two forms primarily based
on the number of fused vertebrae in the sacrum of the type specimens
(three in Apatosaurus ajax, five in Brontosaurus excelsus), a feature
now known to reflect the age of individuals. Elmer Riggs could not find
sufficient grounds for treating both as separate genera, and made the
well-known name Brontosaurus a junior synonyn of Apatosaurus in 1903.
Surprisingly, though, Riggs also thought that the type species itself
could not be identified in an adult form: "Apatosaurus ajax is
based upon a specimen too young to admit of specific determination"--a
situation, which, arguably, could have been grounds for treating the
name Apatosaurus as a nomen dubium and using Brontosaurus instead. Modern
authorities consider Apatosaurus ajax diagnosable, however. The nomenclatural
issues surrounding the name are unrelated to Marsh's mistaken choice
of a Camarasaurus skull for his reconstruction of "Brontosaurus."
Bruhathkayosaurus
(brih-HUT-kah-yo-SAW-rus)
See TITANOSAURUS.
Bugenasaura
Taxon: Ornithopoda
Name means: “large
cheek lizard”
Pronounced: BOO-jen-a-SAW-ra
Length: Unknown
Time: Late Cretaceous,
71 – 65 milion years ago
Place: South Dakota
Named in 1995, this
bipedal plant eater had massive ridges on the maxilla and dentary of
its skull which suggest it may have had a deep pouch on the side of
the face, similar to a mammalian check. The skull was originally identified
as that of the closely related Thescelosaurus.
