Discovery and Naming
Acrocanthosaurus is named for its tall neural spines, from the Greek ɑκρɑ/akra ('high'), ɑκɑνθɑ/akantha ('thorn' or 'spine') and σɑʊρος/sauros ('lizard'). There is one named species (A. atokensis), which is named after Atoka County in Oklahoma, where the original specimens were found. The name was coined in 1950 by American paleontologists J. Willis Stovall and Wann Langston, Jr. Langston had proposed the name "Acracanthus atokaensis" for the genus and species in his unpublished 1947 master's thesis, but the name was changed to Acrocanthosaurus atokensis for formal publication.
The holotype and paratype (OMNH 10146 and OMNH 10147), discovered in the early 1940s and described at the same time in 1950, consist of two partial skeletons and a piece of skull material from the Antlers Formation in Oklahoma. Two much more complete specimens were described in the 1990s. The first (SMU 74646) is a partial skeleton, missing most of the skull, recovered from the Twin Mountains Formation of Texas and currently part of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History collection. An even more complete skeleton (NCSM 14345, nicknamed 'Fran') was recovered from the Antlers Formation of Oklahoma by Cephis Hall and Sid Love, prepared by the Black Hills Institute in South Dakota, and is now housed at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. This specimen is the largest and includes the only known complete skull and forelimb. Skeletal elements of OMNH 10147 are almost the same size as comparable bones in NCSM 14345, indicating an animal of roughly the same size, while the holotype and SMU 74646 are significantly smaller.
Acrocanthosaurus may be known from less complete remains outside of Oklahoma and Texas. A tooth from southern Arizona has been referred to the genus, and matching tooth marks have been found in sauropod bones from the same area. Several teeth from the Arundel Formation of Maryland have been described as almost identical to those of Acrocanthosaurus and may represent an eastern representative of the genus. Many other teeth and bones from various geologic formations throughout the western United States have also been referred to Acrocanthosaurus, but most of these have been misidentified.
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