''Nedcolbertia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

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 Early

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

Period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...

of North America.

Discovery and naming

Three skeletons of a theropod were discovered in 1993 by Christopher Whittle near

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

in the basal Yellow Cat Member of the

Cedar Mountain Formation The Cedar Mountain Formation is the name given to a distinctive sedimentary geologic formation in eastern Utah, spanning most of the early and mid- Cretaceous. The formation was named for Cedar Mountain in northern Emery County, Utah, where Will ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, dating to the

Valanginian In the geologic timescale, the Valanginian is an age or stage of the Early or Lower Cretaceous. It spans between 139.8 ± 3.0 Ma and 132.9 ± 2.0 Ma (million years ago). The Valanginian Stage succeeds the Berriasian Stage of the Lower Cretace ...

. These were subsequently studied and reported in 1995 by Kirkland, Britt, Madsen and Burge.J. I. Kirkland, C. H. Whittle, B. B. Britt, S. Madsen and D. Burge. A Small Theropod from the Basal Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous, Barremian) of Eastern Utah. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 15(3), 39A (1995). Though in 1996 it had been announced that the

taxon In biology, a taxon ( back-formation from '' taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular n ...

would be named "Nedcolbertia whittlei", in 1998 it was actually described and named by Kirkland, Whittle, Britt, Madsen and Burge as the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

''Nedcolbertia justinhofmanni''. The generic name honours the American

palaeontologist 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 ...

Edwin Harris Colbert Edwin Harris "Ned" Colbert (September 28, 1905 – November 15, 2001)O'Connor, Anahad ''The New York Times'', November 25, 2001. was a distinguished American vertebrate paleontologist and prolific researcher and author. Born in Clarinda, Iowa, h ...

, known as "Ned" to his friends. The specific name honoured Justin Hofmann, a six-year-old school boy from

Newton, New Jersey Newton, officially the ''Town of Newton'', is an incorporated municipality located in Sussex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is situated approximately by road northwest of New York City. As the location of the county's administrat ...

, a participant of a contest for children by

Discover Card Discover is a credit card brand issued primarily in the United States. It was introduced by Sears in 1985. When launched, Discover did not charge an annual fee and offered a higher-than-normal credit limit, features that were disruptive to the ...

, the winner having a dinosaur named after him.

Description

The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...

, CEUM 5071, is one of the specimens, a partial skeleton lacking the skull. It belonged to a juvenile individual. The

paratype In zoology and botany, a paratype is a specimen of an organism that helps define what the scientific name of a species and other taxon actually represents, but it is not the holotype (and in botany is also neither an isotype nor a syntype). O ...

s are the other two specimens: CEUM 5072 and CEUM 5073, both fragmentary skeletons again lacking the skull. They represent subadult individuals. All three specimens were disarticulated and heavily eroded, having been exposed at the surface before discovery. They are part of the collection of the

College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum The Prehistoric Museum, USU-Eastern, formerly known as the College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum, is a museum accredited by the American Alliance of Museums located in Price, Utah. The museum seeks to promote public understanding of prehi ...

. The holotype of ''Nedcolbertia'' had a length of about . The paratypes, though not yet full-grown, were about . Due to the condition of the remains, information on the species is limited. The vertebrae were not heavily pneumatised. The thumb claw was much larger than the second claw of the hand. The

pubic bone In vertebrates, the pubic region ( la, pubis) is the most forward-facing ( ventral and anterior) of the three main regions making up the coxal bone. The left and right pubic regions are each made up of three sections, a superior ramus, inferior ...

carried a large "foot" with a very small or absent anterior process but a large posterior process. The thigh bone had a lesser trochanter that was clearly lower than the greater trochanter; the fourth trochanter was well-developed. The foot was not arctometatarsal. An enlarged second foot claw was lacking. The describers assigned ''Nedcolbertia'' with certainty to the

Tetanurae Tetanurae (/ˌtɛtəˈnjuːriː/ or "stiff tails") is a clade that includes most theropod dinosaurs, including megalosauroids, allosauroids, tyrannosauroids, ornithomimosaurs, compsognathids and maniraptorans (including birds). Tetanurans ar ...

and provisionally to the

Coelurosauria Coelurosauria (; from Greek, meaning "hollow tailed lizards") is the clade containing all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs. Coelurosauria is a subgroup of theropod dinosaurs that includes compsognathids, t ...

. A 2016 overview of ornithomimosaur material from the

Arundel Formation The Arundel Formation, also known as the Arundel Clay, is a clay-rich sedimentary rock formation, within the Potomac Group, found in Maryland of the United States of America. It is of Aptian age (Lower Cretaceous). This rock unit had been econ ...

of Maryland found ''Nedcolbertia'' to be an ornithomimosaur based on comparisons with the Arundel ornithomimosaur remains, ''

Harpymimus ''Harpymimus'' is a basal ornithomimosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous Period of what is now Mongolia. Unlike later, more derived ornithomimosaurs, ''Harpymimus'' still possessed teeth, although they appear to have been restr ...

'', and '' Nqwebasaurus''.

References

External links

* {{Portalbar, Dinosaurs, Cretaceous, Utah Ornithomimosaurs Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of North America Taxa named by James I. Kirkland Fossil taxa described in 1998

Discovery and naming

Description

References

Further reading

External links