Dinosaurs / Cretaceous / Hypselospinus
Hypselospinus
Cretaceous hip-seh-loh-SPY-nus, “high spine”
Hypselospinus was a mid-sized iguanodontian ornithopod that lived in the Early Cretaceous of Sussex, England. Long regarded as an atypical species of Iguanodon, it was separated into its own genus in 2010. Its defining characteristic is the series of elongated neural spines rising from the back vertebrae, which gave rise to its name meaning high spine. These tall bony projections likely supported a fleshy ridge or fatty hump along its spine, potentially used for metabolic energy storage or social display. At about six metres long, it was lighter and more gracile than its contemporary Barilium, with which it shared the lush, floodplain ecosystems of the ancient Wealden landscape, cropping foliage with strong horny beak tips.
It possessed unusually tall neural spines along its back that supported a low ridge or hump.
Where and when
Hypselospinus lived in the Early Cretaceous, from 140 to 137 million years ago (Valanginian age). Its remains come from United Kingdom, in the Wadhurst Clay Formation.
The numbers
Length 6 m (estimates run from 5.5 to 6.5 m). Mass about 1.2 t. Hip height about 2 m. That is 3.5 human-lengths, or 0.54 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, hip height.