Craterosaurus
From Greek krater, 'bowl' or 'mixing vessel', + Greek sauros, 'lizard/reptile'; means 'bowl reptile' or 'krater reptile'
Craterosaurus is a dubious genus of stegosaurian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of England, known only from a partial dorsal vertebra reworked into the Woburn Sands Formation.
Species
Craterosaurus pottonensis Seeley, 1874 Nomen dubium
Type species
Named for Potton, the locality in Bedfordshire, England, near which the fossil was discovered.
- Holotype
- CAMSM B.28814 , Sedgwick Museum, University of Cambridge
- Material
- Incomplete neural arch of a dorsal vertebra.
- Horizon
- Potton Nodule Bed Bed, Woburn Sands Formation, Berriasian–Aptian, Early Cretaceous , 143.1–113.2 million years ago The age of the older beds the specimen was reworked from.
- Locality
- Old coprolite workings near Potton, Central Bedfordshire, United Kingdom The specimen is reworked into the Potton Nodule Bed, which was deposited in the late Aptian to early Albian (Galton, 2009). Its source beds are not established. Galton (1981) gives the source as "probably Neocomian or possibly Lower Aptian", the Neocomian being the Berriasian to Hauterivian (Gale and colleagues, 2020), reasoning from the predominance of Iguanodon bones among the derived dinosaurs. Casey (1961) lists derived Lower Aptian ammonites alongside Neocomian sandstone in the bed and holds that worn bones there prove no older source, as "Iguanodon was still living in Aptian times". The age therefore spans every stage from the Berriasian to the Aptian.
References
- Seeley, H. G. (1874). On the Base of a large Lacertian Cranium from the Potton Sands, presumably Dinosaurian. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 30(1-4): 690-692. Geological Society of London. doi:10.1144/gsl.jgs.1874.030.01-04.62 seeley1874a
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Maidment, S. C. R.; Norman, D. B.; Barrett, P. M.; Upchurch, P. (2008). Systematics and phylogeny of Stegosauria (Dinosauria: Ornithischia). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 6(4): 367-407. Informa UK Limited. doi:10.1017/S1477201908002459
Regards it as a nomen dubium; the excavation behind the prezygapophyses that Galton (1981) took as diagnostic also occurs in Kentrosaurus and Loricatosaurus and has been deepened by erosion.
maidment2008a -
Galton, P. M. (1981). Craterosaurus pottonensis Seeley, a stegosaurian dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of England, and a review of Cretaceous stegosaurs. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 161(1): 28-46. Schweizerbart. doi:10.1127/njgpa/161/1981/28
Refers the vertebra to Stegosauria and diagnoses the genus by a deep cavity behind the prezygapophyses that he holds is natural, not erosional.
galton1981b -
Galton, P. M. (1985). British plated dinosaurs (Ornithischia, Stegosauridae). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 5(3): 211-254. doi:10.1080/02724634.1985.10011859
Gives the horizon as the Potton Nodule Bed, "probably reworked from beds of Neocomian age", and diagnoses the genus by "a very deep depression in the top of the arch posterior to the prezygapophyses".
galton1985d -
Galton, P. M. (2009). Notes on Neocomian (Lower Cretaceous) ornithopod dinosaurs from England - Hypsilophodon, Valdosaurus, "Camptosaurus", "Iguanodon" - and referred specimens from Romania and elsewhere. Revue de Paléobiologie, Genève 28(1): 211-273.
Dates the Potton Nodule Bed as "reworked into late Aptian-early Albian".
galton2009a -
Casey, R. (1961). The stratigraphical palaeontology of the Lower Greensand. Palaeontology 3: 487-621.
Lists Neocomian sandstone and Lower Aptian ammonites among the derived material of the Potton nodules, and rejects worn bones as proof of an older source.
casey1961a -
Gale, A. S.; Mutterlose, J.; Batenburg, S.; Gradstein, F. M.; Agterberg, F. P.; Ogg, J. G.; Petrizzo, M. R. (2020). The Cretaceous Period. Geologic Time Scale 2020 (Gradstein, F. M.; Ogg, J. G.; Schmitz, M. D.; Ogg, G. M., eds) 1023-1086. Elsevier, Amsterdam. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-824360-2.00027-9
Resolves the Neocomian into the Berriasian, Valanginian and Hauterivian.
gale2020a