Valdoraptor
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Valdoraptor Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 136 Ma |
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| Partial left metatarsus of Valdoraptor, from Owen (1858) | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | Theropoda |
| Clade: | †Ornithomimosauria |
| Genus: |
†Valdoraptor Olshevsky, 1991 |
| Type species | |
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†Megalosaurus oweni Lydekker, 1889 |
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| Species | |
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Valdoraptor (meaning "Wealden plunderer") is a genus of theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous. Its fossils were found in England. It is known only from bones of the feet. The holotype, BMNH R2559 (incorrectly given by Owen as BMNH R2556), was found near Cuckfield in layers of the Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation dating from the late Valanginian. The specimen is damaged lacking parts of the upper and lower ends. It has a conserved length of 215 millimetres (8.5 in) and an estimated length of 240 millimetres (9.4 in). This genus is paleontologically significant for being the first ornithomimosaur specimen known from England and represents the earliest record of ornithomimosaurs in the world.
In 1858 Richard Owen referred a fossil consisting of a set of three metatarsals, foot bones, part of the collection of the British Museum of Natural History, to the herbivorous dinosaur genus Hylaeosaurus because of its size and bone texture. Owen had a lithograph made of the bones that gave a mirrored image: although they were in fact from the left foot, it now seemed they were from the right foot.
By 1881 John Whitaker Hulke had recognised that the specimen represented a foot from a carnivorous theropod. In 1888 Richard Lydekker referred the specimen to the theropod species Megalosaurus dunkeri but in 1889 he named a separate species for it because of the more robust build: Megalosaurus oweni. The specific name honours Owen. Lydekker was deceived by the 1858 illustration into thinking that it was the right foot. He also incorrectly assumed it had four metatarsals, a mistake repeated for over a century. Lydekker referred several other foot specimens to the species: BMNH 2574, 2661 and 2680 from the same stratigraphic horizon, and also BMNH R604d and BMNH R1525, uncovered from the earlier Wadhurst Clay Formation in the Hollington Quarry near Hastings.
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