Valdosaurus

Valdosaurus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous
Valdosaurus sp. ilia, NHM 2150, from the Upper Tunbridge Wells Sandstone of Cuckfield
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Suborder:	†Ornithopoda
Family:	†Dryosauridae
Genus:	†Valdosaurus Galton, 1977
Species:	†V. canaliculatus
Binomial name
Valdosaurus canaliculatus (Galton, 1975 [originally Dryosaurus])

Valdosaurus ("Weald Lizard") is a genus of bipedal herbivorous iguanodont ornithopod dinosaur found on the Isle of Wight and elsewhere in England. It lived during the Early Cretaceous.

In the nineteenth century Reverend William Darwin Fox collected two small thighbones near Cowleaze Chine on the southwest coast of the Isle of Wight. In 1868 he incorrectly suggested these may have come from the same individual that had in 1848 been uncovered for Gideon Mantell as a fossil of Iguanodon, and which in 1869 would be named as the new genus Hypsilophodon. Regardless, both femora, made part of the collection of the British Museum of Natural History as specimens BMNH R184 and BMNH R185, would be commonly referred to the latter genus.

However, in 1975 Peter Galton named them as a new species of Dryosaurus: Dryosaurus canaliculatus. The specific name means "with a small channel" in Latin, referring to a distinct groove between the condyles of the lower thighbone. In 1977 Galton named a new genus for them: Valdosaurus, the name being derived from Latin Valdus, "Wealden", a reference to the Wealden Group. Its type species, D. canaliculatus, was thus renamed V. canaliculatus. A second species, V. nigeriensis, was described by Galton and Philippe Taquet from younger rocks from Niger in 1982; this has since been transferred to its own genus, Elrhazosaurus.

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