Bactrosaurus

Gary Todd, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bactrosaurus was discovered in the Gobi desert in China that was partial remains of six individual skeletons. They were from a variety of different age groups from newly hatched, right through to full sized adults.

They were named by Charles W. Gilmore, an American palaeontologist who named the them Bactrosaurus, which means “club lizard”, this name related to the large club-shaped neural spines coming from some of the vertebrae.   

In 2003 scientists tested more than 10,000 fossils by CT scans and X-rays to see if they had tumours in the vertebrae, and there was evidence of cancer and tumours in Bactrosaurus. It was concluded that this was due to environmental factors or it was genetic. 

Bactrosaurus was a plant eating, large, ornithopod dinosaur which could walk on two or four legs, and it had a long tail. There is a restored skelton at the Hong Kong Science Museum.        

Bagaceratops

Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bagaceratops was a small herbivore ceratopsian that grew to around 1m in size. It evolved in time but retained a lot of characteristics such as beaks but no brow horns, and a small horn like bump on its snout. The juvenile skulls were the size of golf balls.

Its name Bagaceratops, means “small-horned face” and was first discovered in the Gobi Desert in the 1970’s by a joint expedition with scientists from Poland and Mongolia. The fossils were first described in 1975 by some of the leading palaeontologists and the specimens were taken to an institute in Warsaw, Poland.

Being a herbivore it was likely that Bagaceratops fed on plants, ferns, conifers, and cycads. It lived in North America and Asia and had parrot-like beaks.

Bagaceratops was a relative of Protoceratops and would have constantly been on the look out for predators such as Tyrannosaurs and Dromaeosaurs.

Bambiraptor

PaleoEquii, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bambiraptor was discovered by a 14 year old who was out fossil hunting with his parents at the Glacier National Park in the United States in 1993. The boy named Wes Linster told a magazine that he found the skeleton on a hill top and knew he had to alert his parents as he shouldn’t have messed with it. This fossil was 95% complete and was described as a “jewel” by paleontologist John Ostrom and helped him and other scientists understand the dinosaur-bird link.

In 2000 it was described by a team of scientists (including John Ostrom) that it was in fact a separate species and they called it Bambiraptor. “Bambi” was in reference to its young age and “raptor” meaning “seizer”.

As this was a juvenile fossil scientists know there were adults but have no fossils to back up their theories yet in terms of estimated sizes and weight. It was thought that Bambiraptor was a fast runner as it had long hindlimbs.

Barapasaurus

Dmitry Bogdanov, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

PaleoEquii, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Barapasaurus is one of the earliest known sauropods and is also one of the most known as there are around 300 bones from 6 individuals. This means scientists have bones from most of the skeleton so collectively they can see how Barapasaurus would have looked very accurately.

Barapasaurus means “big-legged lizard” and the first finding was in 1958 with others being found in 1960 and 1961 with all discoveries being made at the same location in central India, scattered over a 276 square meter area. The scientists concluded that the find showed they were a herd and died possibly of a flood.
It was named in 1975 by palaeontologist Sohan Jain and most of the bones are displayed in the Geological Museum of the Indian Statistical Institute.

Barapasaurus was an early sauropod and so before they evolved, you can see that it had a shortened trunk and even though its size was large in comparison to other types of dinosaurs, for sauropods this was still small.

Barosaurus

Fred Wierum, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Barosaurus was another long necked, long tailed, giant sauropod dinosaur that was related to the Diplodocus. Barosaurus was taller and measured more than 25 to 27 meters (82 to 89 foot) which made it slightly bigger. It also weighed around 12 to 20 tons.

Barosaurus was different to Diplodocus as it had a longer neck and shorter tail. Both their limbs were almost identical although their feet have never been discovered.

The first fossil was found in 1889 by Othniel Marsh and John Hatcher. Marsh named the fossil in 1890 ‘Barosaurus lentus’ which consisted of only six tail vertebrae. The rest of the fossil was left in the ground under the supervision on the landowner until it was collected 9 years later. These new fossils of limb bones, ribs, and vertebrae gave Marsh a more complete skeleton to help him classify the dinosaur.  

Baryonyx

Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Baryonox was a large theropod dinosaur that is said to have been the first fish eating (piscivorous) theropod known. Baryonyx ate fish and there has been hypothesises that the dinosaur used crocodile like adaptions of eating its prey using its long, narrow jaws. 

In 1983 William Walker an English plumber, was exploring a clay pit in Surrey, England, when he found a rock that had, what he thought, has a large claw fossil. It was only when he got home did he realise the tip was missing so he went back some weeks later to the same spot to search for the missing bit. He then discovered another bone and part of a rib. William then took his discovery to the Natural History Museum of London where palaeontologists inspected and reported back it was from a theropod dinosaur.

At first the palaeontologists that named Baryonyx thought that the dinosaur was not spend much time in water but it could like most land vertebrates swim if needed. There has since been much debate and because of its crocodile like long snout some scientists have thought it was inevitable that Baryonyx was a piscivorous (fish-eating) species. With this theory in mind its thought it lived near water.

Becklespinax

Image source Sergey Krasovskly

Becklespinax was a large predatory theropod dinosaur that was discovered in Sussex, England in 1884. Only a few vertebrae fossils were discovered and originally it was thought to be of a second species of Altispinax that was a close relative but there was no firm proof of this.

Altispinax was first described only by teeth that were discovered and that is why it was first thought as being this dinosaur. It was later thought that the fossils came from a European species of Acrocanthosaurus.

It wasn’t until 1991 when George Olshevsky identified these vertebrae as a new species that Becklespinax was first named. Its name was after the fossil hunter from England who discovered the vertebrae, Samuel Beckles. Little would Samuel have known that his find would cause such debate and confusion in the forthcoming years.

Its also been hard for scientists with just these fossils remains to estimate Becklespinax’s shape and size.

Beipiaosaurus

PaleoNeolitic, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Beipiaosaurus was first discovered in 1996 in China and since then there have been another two specimens found and numerous feather impressions. Theses feather structures have allowed scientists to determine the colour which you can see from the Beipiaosaurus picture was thought to be brown. 

Beipiaosaurus were small in size but their heads were large, and necks small in comparison to some of its relatives.

The feathers on Beipiaosaurus have helped scientists to understand the environment it lived in and they believed that the seasonal climate fluctuations included warm and humid conditions with dry seasons. The average temperature was thought to be 10°C (50°F) and some studies have thought that the winters were cold. 

Beipiaosaurus was named by three Chinese palaeontologists, Xu Xing, Tang Zhilu, and Wang Xiaolin, and its name refers to the city in Northeast China where the fossil was found (Beipiao).       

Bellusaurus

Debivort, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bellusaurus was discovered in China when the fossils of seventeen individuals were found in one quarry that suggested a herd may have been killed by a flash flood.  

Bellusaurus means “Beautiful lizard” and was named this due to the sauropods small and light build. This fossils specific name Bellusaurus sui was named in honor of a Chinese restorer of fossils called Youling Su and this was the last restoration undertaken by him.

It was thought that the remains of the herd of Bellusaurus’s found were all juvenile and so scientists have thought they may have increased in size with age, but this is all speculation as there is no evidence to support this theory.

Bellusaurus may have had predatory threats in the way of Guanlong and other dinosaurs that were possibly about at the same time was Jiangjunosaurus and Yinlong. 

Borogovia

Image source: Fandom

Borogovia was discovered in what is now Mongolia, in 1971 after a Polish-Mongolian expedition discovered fossils of a small theropod in the North-western area of the Gobi desert. This area is known as the “Valley of the dragons”, in relation to the amount of dinosaur fossils and discoveries that have been made there.

A Polish palaeontologist named Halszka Osmolska studied the fossils and concluded that this was a new species that was discovered. It wasn’t until 1987 that the species was named “Borogovia gracilicrus”, after a fantasy creature called borogoves, in a book named “Through the Looking-Glass” written by author Lewis Carroll. The specific name means “lightly built” in Greek referring to the build of its lower leg.

Borogovia would have been a predator and was thought to be more than capable of capturing smaller prey by itself.  Osmolska discovered that the main identity of Borogovia was its second toe which was smaller and fatter than relatives. 

Brachiosaurus

Богданов dmitrchel@mail.ru, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Greek for “arm lizard” Brachiosaurus lived in North America 154 to 153 million years ago and was discovered by American palaeontologist Elmer Riggs when the fossils were found in Colorado river. Riggs named this fossil in 1903 but at the time the team thought they had discovered the largest land animal ever.

The location where Brachiosaurus was discovered was a quarry which is now known as Riggs Quarry and the humerus fossilised bone found was bigger than Riggs himself where he tool a photo of the famous fossil. There is now a plaque to mark the location of the discovery and its thought that other possible Brachiosaurus fossils there were vandalised.

Brachiosaurus was estimated to be between 18 and 21 meters (59 and 69 foot) long and weighed 28 to 58 tonnes. 

Like most sauropod dinosaurs Brachiosaurus had a small skull, a long neck, a large trunk, and a muscular long tail. It did have proportionately long arms which was why it was given its name.   

Brachylophosaurus

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Brachylophosaurus, the “short crested lizard”, was named in 1953 from partial fossils first discovered in Canada in 1936. It was named by Charles Mortram Sternberg who was a Canadian fossil collector and palaeontologist.

Other finds were made in 1990 where a partial skull was found, but the most exciting Brachylophosaurus was discovered in 1994 when an amateur palaeontologist named Nate Murphy, discovered a complete and uncrushed skeleton which Nate named “Elvis”.

From there they (a team from the Judith River Dinosaur Institute) discovered even more and in 2000 Dan Stephenson discovered a mummified skeleton of a Brachylophosaurus which was considered one of the best dinosaur finds ever and was even recorded as such in the Guinness Book of World Records. They named this one Leonardo and and there were several more discovered from the same area.

Leonardo helped scientists by being able to prove that it ate leaves, ferns, conifers, and flowering plants.

Brachytrachelopan

Nobu Tamura email:nobu.tamura@yahoo.com www.palaeocritti.com, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Brachytrachelopan was a sauropod dinosaur that was found in Argentina in the way of an incomplete skeleton that was discovered by a local shepherd, Daniel Mesa, who was looking for his lost sheep. As such the species was named Brachytrachelopan mesai while the genus (first name) is translated to “short-necked Pan”, Pan being the God of shepherds. 

The fossil was already exposed due to erosion and so it was possible that more remains would have been found if discovered years earlier. 

To date this has been the only discovery of Brachytrachelopan and it the partial fossils which included its neck, back, hip and ribs, have shown that it was a short necked and subsequently short in general for a sauropod.

The short neck (one of the shortest of all sauropods) have suggested that Brachytrachelopan would have ate mainly low to medium height vegetation. 

Buitreraptor

Conty, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Buitreraptor was a rather small dinosaur in comparison to its much larger Deinonychus. Buitreraptor is thought to have been around 1.5 metres long and weighed around 3kg.

The best way to think about Buitreraptor is like a large flightless bird. Even though Buitreraptor was classed as dromaeosaurs dinosaur it looked completely different not only in size but also in its key features.

The most notable difference was that Buitreraptor head and jaw area were completely different to that of say Velociraptor.

Buitreraptor still had the famous curved second claw found on its second toe on its feet, but obviously much smaller than that found on Velociraptor and Deinonychus. Another interesting fact about Buitreraptor is that it had the longest arms of any dromaeosaurids and with three long fingers, which may have helped it hold onto its small prey.

Palaeontologists have not discovered any fossils that show Buitreraptor with feathers, however with so much scientific evidence to show that other dromaeosaurids such as Velociraptor did have feathers, it’s a well calculated theory that Buitreraptor would have also had feathers.