A Baryonyx tooth for #FossilFriday, plus blog bonus!

The unique crocodile-like tooth of Baryonyx

Tooth of the english fish-eating spinosaur Baryonyx walkeri. Possibly my favourite of the ~20 or so Baryonyx teeth I have collected (mainly due to the rich red and yellow colours), this is also the stratigraphically lowest, being from half way through Sudmoor bay. Wessex Fm, Barremian, Early Cretaceous, Isle of Wight, UK.

If you like Baryonyx teeth you can find another 20+ illustrated on my SVP poster from 2007. 15mb PDF available here.

Blog bonus!

I recently came across this old press photo (1983) for sale on the internet. The photo shows the original discoverer of Baryonyx, Mr. William (Bill) Walker, along with Sandra Chapman at the Natural History Museum, London. If you're as big of a fan of Baryonyx as I am, then you are probably familiar with the iconic photo of Bill Walker holding up the claw of the dinosaur that bears his name, but I had not seen this photo before (presumably taken at the same sitting). Enjoy!

Sandra Chapman (left) and Bill Walker (right) hold the enlarged hand claw of Baryonyx walkeri.
John Sibbick illustration in the background.
Vintage press photograph for sale at internet shopping website.

Presumably the flip side of the photo.

Iguanodon for Fossil Friday

#Fossil Friday

Over the years I have collected lots of fossils from all over the globe. I have started posting photos of these to my facebook page for #FossilFriday. I'm going to post them here on the blog too.

So far I've been focusing on fossils I have found on the Isle of Wight, UK. This is the best place in Europe to find dinosaur fossils.

So here's this week's image:

Iguanodon. The best dinosaur, or your money back.

This is the nicest Iguanodon tooth that I have found, which is not saying much really. The tooth is from the maxilla (upper jaw) and is nicely preserved as it is unworn, i.e. it had not yet been used by the dinosaur to chew with.

I suppose technically I should say that this is <probably> from Mantellisaurus, which is the new name for Iguanodon atherfieldensis. I'm not a big fan of taxonomists constantly renaming taxa. Collected from the Wessex Fm (Barremian; Lower Cretaceous, ~130 Ma), Brighstone, Isle of Wight, UK.

If you would like to see previous #FossilFriday posts on my Facebook page, head to the album here.