Becklespinax

Vertebrae of Becklespinax

• Sussex, United Kingdom

• Becklespinax altispinax

Becklespinax is a genus theropod dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of England. George Olshevsky 1991 published the first scientific description of the genus with the type species B. altispinax.

This carnivore is only known from a few vertebrae and teeth, which have been found in southern England, Sussex in 1884 and originally Altispinax, now a noun dubium, have been assigned. Characteristic of Becklespinax are the projections on the back of the animal, which once have most likely supported a ridge sail. It is not clear whether the about 5 to 8 meters long theropod Spinosaurus with the Spinosauriden from Africa or Baryonyx, also from the English Lower Cretaceous, is closely related, or whether it belongs to a different taxon.

History of Research

Friedrich von Huene in 1923 introduced the genus Altispinax with the type A. dunkeri on. He leaned on the description of Megalosaurus dunkeri, the Dames had published on the basis of a tooth and some vertebrae in 1884. The vertebrae were found in England in the same year by the collector Samuel H. Beckles and described. It was later realized that they still belonged neither to Altispinax to other known genus, therefore, George Olshevsky 1991, named after the fossil collectors new breed.