Cetiosaurus - Discovery and Species

Discovery and Species

Cetiosaurus was the first sauropod to be discovered and named as well as being the best known sauropod from England. Fossilized remains have been found in England and Morocco. Remains consisting of a vertebra, rib and arm bone had been discovered on the Isle of Wight and named by English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist Sir Richard Owen, in 1841, the year before he coined the term Dinosauria. More limb bones were found in the late 1840s and a fairly complete skeleton in 1868. Owen thought it had crocodilian features. Ironically, Cetiosaurus's true nature was not realized until Thomas Huxley named it as a dinosaur in 1869.

Cetiosaurus Species

• C. medius(type)
• C. brevis
• C. mogrebiensis
• C. oxoniensis

Numerous species have been assigned to Cetiosaurus over the years and belong to several different groups of dinosaurs. The best known of these is C. oxoniensis, from the Middle Jurassic (Bajocian) of Oxfordshire and Rutland, However, the type species is C. medius, known from undiagnostic material (note that Upchurch and Martin reported C. brevis as the type species, but no longer hold this view; the problem stems from the fact that Richard Owen described four species in the same paper and did not designate one as the type). To improve this situation, Upchurch and colleagues have proposed making C. oxoniensis the type species of Cetiosaurus, which will retain the name Cetiosaurus for the animal with which it has been traditionally associated.

A C. oxoniensis specimen (LCM G468.1968) called the "Rutland Dinosaur" was discovered on 19 June 1968 by the driver of an excavating vehicle. Staff from Leicester City Museums arrived on 20 June 1968. It was not confirmed that all the preserved material was collected. It is one of the most complete fossils of a dinosaur found in the United Kingdom. It is one of only two cetiosaur fossils in the UK; the other was found in Bletchingdon in 1871. It is one of the most complete sauropod dinosaur fossils ever found. The other Sauropod dinosaur on display in the UK is a Diplodocus. It was only in around 1980 that there was interest in the fossil. It took around four years to find the dinosaur bones. There are around 200 bones in a Cetiosaurus. It has a nearly complete cervical series (2-14), most of the dorsal vertebrae, a small part of the sacrum and anterior caudals, the chevrons, the ilium, the right femur, and rib and limb fragments.

The incomplete fossil is 15 metres long (c. 47 feet) and has been displayed since 1985 in the New Walk Museum in Leicester. Only the more structurally-sound parts of the dinosaur are on display, with the more-fragile parts stored elsewhere. Much of what can be seen in the display is a representation (replica), and not the actual dinosaur. The model's vertebra seen on display has 14 cervicals, 10 dorsals, 5 sacrals and about 50 caudals. The dinosaur display was taken to London and featured on Blue Peter in the studio. The display in Leicester was opened in 1985 by Blue Peter's Janet Ellis.