STL Science Center

STL Science Center

20 August 2013

Othnielosaurus in Writing

Many papers have been written about, or mention, Laosaurus, Othnielia and Othnielosaurus. The key papers that describe and assign the animals through time into ever smaller groups are the most important papers though. Marsh's original 1877 piece describing what he called Laosaurus is of the utmost importance as it provides original descriptions of the remains of Othnielosaurus. Likewise important is CW Gilmore's 1909 description of an addition to the family; Laosaurus minimus. Both articles are difficult to find copies of, and your best bet honestly seems to be inter-library loans, as the internet does not have scanned copies hidden in it anywhere it seems. In 1977 Galton reassigned both L. consors and L. gracilis to Othnielia rex and redescribed the remains of the two species. 30 years later, in 2007, Galton again re-examined the remains and reseated the genus as Othnielosaurus. Both of these writings are of importance. The 2007 writing is a part of a book called Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs edited by Kenneth Carpenter while the 1977 article was published in Nature, and is therefore hard to come by as well online.

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