This timeline of stegosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the stegosaurs, the iconic plate-backed, spike-tailed herbivorous eurypod dinosaurs that predominated during the Jurassic period. The first scientifically documented stegosaur remains were recovered from Early Cretaceous strata in England during the mid-19th century. However, they would not be recognized as a distinct group of dinosaurs until Othniel Charles Marsh described the new genus and species Stegosaurus armatus in 1877, which he regarded as the founding member of the Stegosauria. This new taxon originally included all armored dinosaurs. It was not until 1927 that Alfred Sherwood Romer implemented the modern use of the name Stegosauria as specifically pertaining to the plate-backed and spike-tailed dinosaurs. From the time of their earliest description, the chief mystery surrounding stegosaurs was the function of their distinctive back plates. Marsh originally interpreted them as being plates of armor that would protect against predators. In 1910, Richard Swann Lull would agree with this hypothesis. Charles Whitney Gilmore disagreed in 1914 and argued that the only protection a stegosaur could gain from its plates was to appear intimidatingly larger to potential predators. Nearly forty years later, Davitashvili argued that the plates were too fragile to be used for defense and instead used to attract mates and signal the stegosaur's rank in a social hierarchy. In the late 1970s, James O. Farlow and others would propose that the thin, blood vessel-rich plates helped absorb or lose body heat, depending on the animal's own physiological requirements. This hypothesis was put forth in a broader context of scientists considering the possibility that dinosaurs may have maintained body temperatures and activity levels similar to those of modern birds and mammals, in which case the plates may have served primarily to shed heat rather than gain it. In the late 1980s Buffrenil and others revived the idea that stegosaur plates were display structures, an interpretation that would continue to find favor from researchers like Main and colleagues into the 21st century.
19th century
1840s
1841 Gideon Mantell described the new genus and species Regnosaurus northamptoni.
1870s
1874 Harry Govier Seeley described the new genus and species Craterosaurus pottonensis.
1875 Sir Richard Owen described the new genus and species Omosaurus armatus.
1876 Owen described the new species Anthodon serrarius.
1877 Othniel Charles Marsh described the new genus and species Stegosaurus armatus. Marsh named the Stegosauria. Owen described the new species Omosaurus hastiger.
1878 Edward Drinker Cope described the new genus and species Hypsirhophus discurus.
1879 Cope described the new species Hypsirhophus seeleyanus.
1880s
1880 Marsh named the Stegosauridae. Marsh interpreted the plates of Stegosaurus as an armored covering and its spines as natural weapons. Marsh described the new species Stegosaurus affinis.
1881 Marsh described the new genus and species Diracodon laticeps.
1884 Hulke reported a Cretaceous stegosaur pubis from England.
1887 Hulke described the new species Omosaurus durobrivensis. Marsh described the new species Stegosaurus sulcatus. Marsh described the new species Stegosaurus duplex. Marsh described the new species Stegosaurus stenops.
1890s
1891 Marsh provided an illustrated description of Stegosaurus ungulatus, with a row of erect plates running along the centre of its back.
1893 Harry Govier Seeley described the new species Omosaurus phillipsi.
20th century
1900s
1901 Seeley described the new species Omosaurus leedsi.
1902 Frederick Augustus Lucas described the new genus Dacentrurus to house the species Omosaurus armatus.
1905 Loomis argued that the plates adorning the backs of stegosaurs were maladaptive traits that sapped their vigor and signaled their impending extinction. Similar arguments would later be extended to the extinction of the dinosaurs overall by Woodward in 1910.
1910s
1910 Von Huene described the species Omosaurus vetustus. Richard Swann Lull followed Marsh's interpretation of Stegosaurus plates as armor and its tail spines as "defensive" weapons.
1911 Franz Nopcsa described the new species Omosaurus lennieri. He also described the new species Stegosaurus priscus.
1912 Robert Broom described the new species Palaeoscincus africanus.
1914
Charles Whitney Gilmore described Stegosaurus longispinus. He agreed with previous workers that Stegosaurus used its spines to protect itself, but dismissed the idea that its plates functioned as armor. However, Gilmore conceded that the plates may have helped protect it by making it appear intimidatingly large to predators.
1915 Edwin Hennig described the new genus and species Kentrosaurus aethiopicus.
1916 Nopcsa renamed Kentrosaurus into Doryphorosaurus. Hennig renamed Kentrosaurus into Kentrurosaurus. Both new names were unnecessary.
1920s
1924 Hennig described the distribution of Kentrosaurus bones in Quarry St at Tendaguru, Tanzania. He observed that at one place in the quarry multiple sacra were found near each other, while another area of the quarry contained limb bones, and yet another preserved vertebrae.
1927 Alfred Sherwood Romer observed that the anatomy of the stegosaur pelvis and hindlimb as well as their primarily Jurassic age distinguished them from the mainly Cretaceous ankylosaurs. As the Stegosauria originally included all armored dinosaurs, Romer's distinction marked the beginning of the modern use of the name to refer to the plate-backed and spike-tailed dinosaurs.
1929 Nopcsa erected the new taxon Paranthodon oweni for the same material as Palaeoscincus africanus.
1940s
1944 Yang Zhongjian ("C. C. Young") reported indeterminate stegosaur remains from the Kuangyuan Series. They are among the oldest known stegosaur bones.
1950s
1951 Young (Yang) described the new genus and species Chialingosaurus kuani.
1957 De Lapparent and Georges Zbyszewski described the new species Astrodon pusillus. De Lapparent and Zbyszewski reported a possible stegosaur egg associated with a Dacentrurus skeleton from Portugal. However, as the mysterious object lacks a shell, it is now considered to be a nodule of geologic rather than biological origin. Hoffstetter described the new genus Lexovisaurus to house the species Omosaurus durobrivensis.
1960s
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
