Altispinax
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Altispinax Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 137 Ma |
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| Holotype (NHMUK R1828) illustrated c. 1850s | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Genus: |
†Altispinax von Huene, 1923 |
| Species: | †A. dunkeri |
| Binomial name | |
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Altispinax dunkeri von Huene, 1923 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Altispinax (/ˌæltᵻˈspaɪnæks/; "with high spines") is a genus of large predatory theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian, 140 to 133 million years ago) Wadhurst Clay Formation of East Sussex, England.
Probably during the early 1850s, fossil collector Samuel Husbands Beckles discovered some nodules with dinosaur bones in a quarry near Battle, East Sussex. These he sent to palaeontologist Richard Owen, who reported them in 1856. Owen had a lithography made by Joseph Dinkel of the main specimen, a series of three back vertebrae with very tall spines, whose image was also shown in an 1884 edition of an 1855 volume of his standard work on British fossil reptiles, leading to the misunderstanding the fossils had been recovered close to 1884. Owen, who referred the specimens to Megalosaurus bucklandii, thought the vertebrae were part of the shoulder region and it has been assumed that he must have already known of the find in 1853 as he directed Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins to put a hump on the back of his life-sized Megalosaurus sculpture in Crystal Palace Park, which again inspired other restorations from the 19th century.
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