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175 15 Iguanodontian Taxa (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Lower Cretaceous of England and Belgium David B. Norman This review summarizes current understanding of the history, anatomy, and taxonomy of British and Belgian iguanodontian dinosaurs. The earliest iguanodontian from this circumscribed region is Berriasian in age and represented by a well-preserved but crushed dentary with many teeth in situ; originally named Iguanodon hoggii Owen, 1874, this specimen has been studied and reassessed several times, and decisions concerning its taxonomic status and systematic position have proved to be consistently inconclusive. I. hoggii has recently been renamed Owenodon hoggii; however, the diagnostic anatomical characters that form the foundation for this new name are few and not taxonomically or systematically robust. It is considered appropriate to regard this undoubtedly important taxonomic entity as indicative of a basal (ankylopollexian) iguanodontian and to encourage new exploration for additional skeletal remains from Berriasian-aged deposits in England. Wealden iguanodontian taxonomy in England has also begun to be scrutinized more thoroughly. Difficulties encountered when trying to diagnose the original (Valanginian) type genus (Iguanodon Mantell, 1825) and species (Iguanodon anglicus Holl, 1829) created problems that were resolved using a rather unfortunate workaround that involved the use of a Barremian–Lower Aptian species: I. bernissartensis Boulenger in Van Beneden 1881. With regard to remains collected from numerous Wealden localities in southern England, it was recognized that known iguanodontians can be subdivided into anatomically and chronologically distinct groupings: an earlier (Valanginian) “fauna” represented by Barilium dawsoni (Lydekker, 1888) and Hypselospinus fittoni (Lydekker, 1889), and a later (Barremian–Lower Aptian) “fauna” comprising Iguanodon bernissartensis Boulenger in Van Beneden, 1881, and Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis (Hooley, 1925). The Belgian locality at Bernissart , assigned to the Sainte-Barbe Clays Formation (late Barremian–Lower Aptian) has yielded two taxa that have been recognized as anatomically similar to those identified in the contemporaneous Wealden deposits of southern England (the Weald Clay Group of the Wealden District and the Wealden Group of the Isle of Wight). Recent suggestions that further taxa can be diagnosed within the English and Belgian Wealden sequences are assessed (and rejected) on the basis of the evidence presented. The geological surveys undertaken by William Smith (1769–1839) that led to the first geological map of England and Wales during the early years of the nineteenth century involved the collection of rock samples Historical Perspective Norman 176 and (crucially) fossil objects from a range of outcrops, whether natural or man made. During one survey across southeast England in 1809, Smith collected samples of large and unidentified fossil vertebrate bones from working quarries in Tilgate Forest near the village of Cuckfield, Sussex. Among these remains, which are mostly fragments of vertebral centra that, with the benefit of hindsight, can be assigned to a medium-size ornithopod (iguanodontian) dinosaur, there is a reasonably distinctive iguanodontian distal left tibia (NHMUK R526; Fig. 15.1), which I identified in 1976 for Alan Charig (1979). The locality from which this material was collected and its stratigraphic setting have become as important as details of comparative osteology. The quarries (there were several that produced both building stone and aggregate for road construction and repair) bordering Whiteman’s Green, on the outskirts of Cuckfield, also produced abundant fossil remains of plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates (Mantell, 1833; Norman, in press a). Given the fashion at this time for gentlemen of means to create personal cabinets of curiosities, quarrymen were able to supplement their earnings by selling fossils that they found. Gideon Algernon Mantell (1790–1852) had qualified as a physician and set up his medical practice at the village of Lewes (10 miles [16 km] southeast of Cuckfield) during the latter half of the second decade of the nineteenth century. As an enthusiastic natural philosopher, collector, and amateur geologist, Mantell was keen to document the geology of the countryside that he visited while on his medical rounds, and to assemble a comprehensive fossil collection in preparation for a detailed publication on the fossils and geology of this area of England (Mantell, 1822). Mantell was able to obtain several notable ridged and channeled fossil teeth, as well as fragments of rib of unusually large size, from the Cuckfield quarries. The teeth he described in some detail (Mantell, 1822, 54–55), and the rib he (very presciently) observed bore “a greater resemblance to the rib of a quadruped [=large mammal], than to those of the lacertae [=reptile]” (Mantell, 1822, 55). Shortly afterward (with advice from Georges Cuvier, William Clift, and William Daniel Conybeare), the distinctive...

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