''Fostoria'' (named after Robert Foster who discovered the type locality and bones; the specific name means "sheep yard" in the languages of the Yuwaalaraay, Yuwaalayaay, and

Gamilaraay The Gamilaraay, also known as Gomeroi, Kamilaroi, Kamillaroi and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people whose lands extend from New South Wales to southern Queensland. They form one of the four largest Indigenous nations in Au ...

peoples of Australia) is a genus of

iguanodontia Iguanodontia (the iguanodonts) is a clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. Some members include ''Camptosaurus'', ''Dryosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', '' Tenontosaurus'', and the hadrosaurids or "duck-bil ...

ornithopod Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (), that started out as small, bipedal running grazers and grew in size and numbers until they became one of the most successful groups of herbivores in the Cretaceous wo ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

from the

Griman Creek Formation The Griman Creek Formation is a geological formation in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, Australia whose strata date back to the Albian-Cenomanian of the Early-Late Cretaceous.Bell et al., 2019 It is most notable being a major so ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, Australia. The type and only species, ''Fostoria dhimbangunmal'' was described in 2019.

Classification

''Fostoria'' was classified within the clade Iguanodontia by the describing authors, who entered it into a recent phylogenetic matrix but with some modifications and recodings. It was found to be the most basal of a clade comprising ''

Anabisetia ''Anabisetia'' ( ) is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period of Patagonia, South America. It was a small bipedal herbivore, around long. Discovery Argentine paleontologists Rodolfo Coria and Jorge Orlando Calvo nam ...

'', ''

Muttaburrasaurus ''Muttaburrasaurus'' was a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur, which lived in what is now northeastern Australia sometime between 110 and 103 million years agoHoltz, Thomas R. Jr. (2012) ''Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to ...

.'' and ''

Talenkauen ''Talenkauen'' is a genus of basal iguanodont dinosaur from the Campanian or Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous Cerro Fortaleza Formation, formerly known as the Pari Aike Formation of Patagonian Lake Viedma, in the Austral Basin of Sa ...

,'' supported by the following synapomorphies: * frontals contacting less than 25% of the orbit * paroccipital processes (exoccipital-opisthotic complex) extending laterally and are slightly dorsoventrally expanded distally * caudal ribs located on neural arch However, a recent study covering the phylogeny of

Cerapoda Cerapoda ("ceratopsians" and "ornithopods") is a clade of the dinosaur order Ornithischia, that includes pachycephalosaurs, ceratopsians and ornithopods Classification Cerapoda is divided into two groups: Ornithopoda ("bird-foot") and Marginoc ...

using the same matrix as Bell ''et al.'' (2019) found ''Fostoria'' to be within the

Rhabdodontomorpha Rhabdodontomorpha is a clade of basal iguanodont dinosaurs. This group was named in 2016 in the context of the description, based on Spanish findings of an early member of the Rhabdodontidae. A cladistic analysis was conducted in which it was f ...

, sharing the following features with the derived rhabdodontids: (1) A nearly vertical suture between its supraoccipital and opisthotics and (2) the length of the distolateral condyle on the distal extremity of femur (not accounting for its posterolateral condylid) is less than 40% the total distal width of the femur.

History of discovery

In 1984, Bob Foster, an opal miner, discovered a vertebra from an

Lightning Ridge Lightning Ridge is a small outback town in north-western New South Wales, Australia. Part of Walgett Shire, Lightning Ridge is situated near the southern border of Queensland, about east of the Castlereagh Highway. The Lightning Ridge area i ...

. Foster originally interpreted the fossil as a hoof belonging to a

horse The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million yea ...

. Foster eventually found so many fossils in his mine that he showed his finds to

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

s of the

Australian Museum The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia,Design 5, 2016, p.1 and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the ...

in Sydney. After they had a look at the ''Fostoria'' fossils, paleontologist Alexander Ritchie with some army reservists travelled to the mine to excavate more fossils. The fossils were prepared but remained unstudied until 2015. Foster in the early 21st century removed the finds from a private opal museum and exhibited them in, and later donated them to the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge, where they remain to this day.

References

Iguanodonts Cenomanian life Cretaceous dinosaurs of Australia Fossil taxa described in 2019 {{ornithopod-stub