NEOVENATOR SALERII

摘要

The Wealden Group of southern England has long been regarded as one of the most important Lower Cretaceous dinosaur-bearing units in the world. Dinosaur fossils have been known from the Wealden Group since at least the 1820s, and include a diverse assemblage of taxa that has formed the basis for wide-ranging anatomical, phylogenetic and palaeoecological studies. These taxa include some of the best-known British dinosaurs, such as Baryonyx, Hypsilophodon, Iguanodon and Polacanthus. Many of the Wealden dinosaurs were discovered and studied by some of the pioneering figures in British, and indeed global, palaeontology, including William Buckland, Gideon Mantell and Richard Owen. The descriptions and monographs published by these researchers helped introduce dinosaurs to both the scientific community and popular imagination, and established Great Britain as a centre of palaeontological research (Mantell 1825, 1841, 1848, 1849; Owen 1858, 1859, 1864, 1876). Today, many Wealden taxa originally described in the early-mid 1800s remain among the best-known dinosaurs worldwide.