Moritz the Hesperosaurus: Armored Herbivore of the Jurassic

Meet Moritz, a Hesperosaurus at the @sauriermuseumaathal, whose bony plates and spiked tail made it one of the most impressive, armored dinosaurs of the Jurassic, a close relative of Stegosaurus.

There are a surprising, to me, number of nice-to-spectacular Hesperosaurus skeletons. Enough that variation studies should be done.

I saw two this day, another in Zurich, still another in Denmark, and the holotype in Fukui, Japan earlier this year. I suspect the one that sold recently was a Hespero as well.

This one is the least complete of that list, but I like it because they made the original material markedly contrast from the cast elements. And it is in a neat pose.

When discovered in the mid-1990s, it was initially thought to be.l a Stegosaurus. My friend Dee Hall was on the project. Cliff Miles realized while preparing it that it was something different. Carpenter et al. 2001 viewed it as a primitive stegosaur.

In the mid-2000s it was synonymized with #Stegosaurus, only to see that change back shortly thereafter, at which point it was argued to be quite derived from Stegosaurus.

Two commercial collecting companies have even more material of this taxon. I saw one specimen and the plate is enormous. The other locality has multiple partial skeletons. I have heard rumblings that more from a third locality were found this field season. Is this the Camarasaurus of ornithopods?

It would be neat to see if the plates are truly squarer, or if there is evidence of sexual dimorphism as has been suggested.

#Hesperosaurus #MoritzTheDinosaur #Stegosaur #JurassicDinosaur #FossilCrates #Paleontology #DinosaurExhibit #NaturalHistory #PrehistoricLife

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