Edmontonia

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Edmontonia was an armoured dinosaur discovered in Canada and named after the location it was found (Edmonton Formation) in 1928 by Charles Mortram Sternberg, a palaeontologist.

As you can see in the picture Edmontonia had small, bony plates on its back and head. It also had spikes along its sides with two larger pairs on its shoulders and these were for defence but how effective they were is questionable against theropod predators such as Albertosaurus, and Daspletosaurus. Edmontonia may have crouched down during attack to protect their underbelly and prevent itself from being flipped over.

Edmontonia lived in conditions that were both wet and dry through out the year and so its thought that they would have ate a lot in the wet periods and build up their fat reserves to be able to survive. Fossils have been found with the spikes and armour in the same place which suggests the specimens died in the dry heat seasons and were covered once the rainy season began. 

Edmontosaurus

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Edmontosaurus fossils were first named in 1917 by a Canadian palaeontologist called Lawrence Lambe who found them near Edmonton, Canada. There were other species that were classed under Edmontosaurus such as E. annectens that was named in 1892.

Edmontosaurus was a herbivore and the fossils that have been discovered showed it was possible a dinosaur that lived on coasts throughout the western North America. It was a one of the largest hadrosaurid (duck-billed) dinosaurs, had a bulky body, and a duck-like beak.  

Edmontosaurus was around the same time as Tyrannosaurus rex and there is strong evidence that T rex hunted Edmontosaurus. One such specimen which showed this was discovered with a theropod bite on its tail that is now on display at a museum in Denver, Colorado. Scientists think that  Edmontosaurus got away due to out manoeuvring its attacker and that it may have been targeted in the first place due to it having a previous hip injury and so was an ideal prey for the T rex.   

Einiosaurus

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Einiosaurus means “buffalo lizard” and its specific name of procurvicornis means “with a forward facing horn”. The horn on Einiosaurus grew throughout the dinosaurs life and was its biggest recognisable feature.

Einiosaurus was a herbivore and had tough teeth that meant it could eat and process even the strongest of plants. It also lived in land and would have lived with other dinosaurs such as the predator Daspletosaurus, as well as smaller theropods such as Bambiraptor and Troodon. 

Einiosaurus was named by Scott Sampson in 1994, a palaeontologist from Canada, and this was after finds of three skulls and several hundred bones from over fifteen individuals. This included a specific find with most of these fossils and the theories behind the mass find are either a herd of Einiosaurus’s gathered at a water hole that did not replenish in the dry season, or they drowned whilst attempting to cross a river. Droughts and then floods were thought to be common back then in that climate.

Elaphrosaurus

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Elaphrosaurus, the “lightweight lizard” was discovered in Tanzania, Africa and there is the possibility that the same genus has been discovered in America where some fragments have been found but never formally identified to Elaphrosaurus.

Elaphrosaurus would have been a fast runner and too small to hunt the stegosaurs and sauropods, but likely to have preyed on ornithopod herbivores. Some more recent studies have said that Elaphrosaurus was more likely to have been a herbivore or omnivore as its neck was less flexible to other carnivorous theropods.

Elaphrosaurus had a slender build with a long tail and long neck, and was discovered in 1910 where its now on display in the Museum of Berlin. It was named Elaphrosaurus bambergi by Werner Janensch, a German paleontologist in 1920 with the specific name honouring an industrialist called Paul Bamberg for his financial support in expenditions.  

Emausaurus

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Emausaurus was an armoured dinosaur which was discovered in Germany and named by German palaeontologist Harmut Haubold. Its generic name was named after a University in Grieifswald, and specific name or ernsti, named after geologist Werner Ernst who acquired the fossil in 1963 from a foreman who worked at a pit near Grimmen.

The fossil found was thought to be that of a juvenile and so estimations of a fully grown Emausaurus was thought to be three to four meters but is an estimation only. It was thought to be an armoured dinosaur that lived in the Mid Jurassic period 190 to 180 million years ago.   

Emausaurus was probably a dinosaur that either roamed on all four limbs or it was able to use two legs some of the time. It was likely to be a herbivore which ate ground flora, for example cycads.

Eolambia

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Eolambia caroljonesa is a single species of the Eolambia genus dinosaur and was named after American palaeontologist Lawrence Lambe, with the type species being named in honour of Carol Jones who discovered the fossil. Carol and her husband were in the Cedar Mountain Formation, United States, in 1992 when they made the discovery.

Eolambia was not named until 1998 when James Kirland, an American palaeontologist formally named the specimen. Since then other discoveries have been made and nearly a complete skeleton can be formed from the multiple fossils that have been discovered.

Eolambia was a large hadrosaurid (a duck-billed family of dinosaurs), which lived on a floodplain around some lakes. In dry seasons lake bottoms would have formed a bed of plants and vegetation which may have given Eolambia much needed food.   

Eolambia would have shared its environment with several other dinosaurs such as Animantarax and predators such as Acrocanthosaurus.     

Eoraptor

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Eoraptor was one of the earliest dinosaurs that we know about so far with the fossils being first discovered in Argentina in 1991 and described in 1993 by Paul Sereno and others. The fossil found was able to be dated exactly due to a layer of volcanic ash beneath the fossil   

Eoraptor means “dawn thief”, and was in reference it its primitive nature. It was a small theropod that grew to about 1 meter in length, it was thought to be a good sprinter on its two legs and once it captured its prey it would use its teeth and its claws to rip apart its prey apart. 

Some scientists believe due to Eoraptor’s teeth that it could have been an omnivore as it had teeth of a herbivore and of a carnivore. Its lower jaws lacked a sideways sliding motion that was a distinguishing feature of later carnivore dinosaurs. 

Eotyrannus

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Eotyrannus was a theropod dinosaur that was discovered on the Isle of Wight, in the United Kingdom in 1995. A man named Gavin Leng has found a claw on the coastline and he took it to Steve Hutt who worked at the old Museum of Isle of Wight Geology. The site was then located and carefully excavated where scientists then studied the fossils over the next few years.

The fossil was eventually named by Hutt and others as Eotyrannus lengi, Eotyrannus meaning “dawn tyrant” and lengi was named after Gavin Leng who discovered the fossil.

The environment that Eotyrannus lived in was thought to be warm and humid, it was thought to have wet seasons. Eotyrannus was a tyrannosauroid dinosaur which meant it was in the same family as Tyrannosaurus rex, although T rex existed over 50 million years later. Eotyrannus had long hind legs and hands.

Equijubus

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Equijubus means “horse mane”, was a herbivorous dinosaur that was discovered in China in 2000 when a joint China-American expedition took place in Mazong. In 2002 a Chinese palaeontologist called You Hialu described the species as Equijubus normani which became official the following year. Normani was in honour of  British palaeontologist David Norman.

Equijubus was a large hadrosaurid, a duck-billed dinosaur, and is thought to be the first known dinosaur that ate grass as it had grass fossils extracted from the specimen. It was thought Equijubus was therefore a grazer, similar to the modern day cow. Equijubus was huge with an estimated weight of around 2.5 tones. 

The fossil found had skull, jaws, neck and back vertebrae. It was the only specimen that has been found so far and You Hialu announced that the origin of     hadrosaurids was in what is now Asia and then they branched out to North America and Europe.            

Erketu

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Erketu was a sauropod dinosaur that lived in Asia. Its fossils were discovered between 2002 and 2003 in Mongolia during an expedition. Erketu was thought to have the longest neck relative to the size of its body, with the neck estimated as being twice as long as its body. This took its estimated length to 15 meters / 49 feet.

At the time when Erketu was around, it lived alongside other grazers such as the armoured dinosaur Talarurus, but due to its very long neck Erketu was thought to have dominated the high vegetation with very little competition. Its closely related to Titanosauria.

Its full species name of Erketu ellisoni was named firstly the genus after a Mongolian God (Erketi Tengri), and then the type species named after American Museum of Natural History’s resident paleo-artist, Mick Ellison. Mick was a close friend of Mark Norell who helped named this species in 2006.      

Erlikosaurus

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Erlikosaurus was discovered in 1972 in a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition and it was 8 years later that the species was named Erlikosaurus andrewsi. The generic name of “Erliko” was after a demon king from ancient mythology and the specific name was in honour of an American palaeontologist called Roy Andrews.

The fossil found was of a near complete skull which was around 25cm long and from here the length and size of Erlikosaurus has been estimated. 

Erlikosaurus was thought to have a weak bite force when compared to other theropods which may have meant it was more designed when eating planation to leaf strip rather than crushing tough vegetation. Some scientists have suggested that Erlikosaurus had webbed feet which were designed to swim and eat fish, others thought that the claws were for digging to look for small insects or mammals.

Erlikosaurus lived alongside other similar dinosaurs such as Segnosaurus

Euhelopus

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Euhelopus was discovered in 1913 by a Catholic priest, Father R. Mertens, who was working in China and it wasn’t until 1922 the site was rediscovered and excavated. The name was given by a Swedish palaeontologist Carl Wilman in 1929 and means “Marsh foot” in reference to the marshy area of the finds. Carl was convinced that Euhelopus spent a lot of time in the water using its nostrils like a snorkel, as the vertebrae was full of air sacs this only fed the hypothesis at the time, as he thought the sauropod would float. Since then this theory has been dismissed.  

Euhelopus was originally named as Helopus until it was discovered the name was already given to a bird which was in fact a water bird.

Euhelopus was a sauropod and initially estimations on its weight were 15 – 20 tons but these estimations were reduced in 2016 after a study was conducted. It was also one of the first Chinese sauropods to be described. 

Euoplocephalus

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Euoplocephalus means “well armoured head”, and was named by Canadian palaeontologist Lawrence Lambe in 1910 after first discovery of the fossils in 1897 at the Dinosaur Provincial Park, Canada.

Both its head and the body of Euoplocephalus was covered in armour, but not on all its limbs and tail. Its tail club was often referred to as a defensive weapon and a study conducted stated that large armoured dinosaurs could break bones when they struck with their tail clubs. Possibly used in defence to predators such as tyrannosaurs, the tail could have also been used to fight rival males competing for females. 

Euoplocephalus had small eyes and a good sense of smell and was a herbivore. It was thought to have eaten tough plant material and was able to shear the plantation.  It also had two short horns that grew at the back of the skull, which was thought to protect them from predators trying to bite their jaws on Euoplocephalus’s head. 

Europasaurus

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Europasaurus was a small sauropod dinosaur that lived in Germany and was an example of how isolation on an island brings about evolution of dwarfism. They evolved like this as dinosaurs on Islands did not need to be as big as they have had to survive on less vegetation and may have had reduced threats from predators. 

Apart from being smaller, Europasaurus was similar to other sauropods such as Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus and this was common in Europe in the Late Jurassic period where island chains were developed.

In 1998 a single tooth was discovered in a quarry in Germany and it was only the following year excavation commenced. Fossils were gathered from blast sections used in the quarry which was not ideal. They were gradually taken and put together only for a fire to happen at the Dinosaur Park Munchehagen which meant 106 bones were lost. It was only named in 2006 with Europasaurus meaning “reptile from Europe”.  

Eustreptospondylus

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Eustreptospondylus was a theropod that lived in the south of England during the Late Jurassic Period. Workers at a Brick Pitt near Oxford, England, found a skeleton and were sold to a local bookseller. The man then showed the fossil to Oxford Professor John Phillips who described the bones in 1871 but didn’t name them, and at the time it was the most complete skeleton of a large theropod found.

It was then named Eustreptospondylus in 1964 after more fossils were found and linked to the description given by Phillips.

The fossil of Eustreptospondylus was believed to be not fully grown and estimates of its size are therefore varied. It fed on other smaller dinosaurs and was also believed to be a scavenger of carcasses of marine reptiles and fish. There were suggestions that Eustreptospondylus could swim short distances from Island to Island although this theory is not agreed on by all scientists.