Thursday, August 05, 2010

A Dinosaur find in India

Holotypic caudal vertebra of Titanosaurus indicus in bottom, side, and front views (from Falconer 1868).

In 1828, Sir William Henry Sleeman (whose journals I have been reading and who is credited with helping to eradicate Thuggee cults in India), discovered remains of a dinosaur near Bara Simla hills. He was stationed at Jabalpur when he collected the specimens. These were eventually passed on to Henry Falconer (of the Geological Survey of India) in 1862 who measured and described the pieces but did not assign a name. As late as 1877, richard Lydekker used these three bones (pic) to form the basis of a new Taxon Titanosaurus indicus. 


You won't find it exhibited in any museum under this name, however, because the adjunct "indicus" was long since thrown out while the Titanosaurus taxon remains.

Read a lot more about the Titanosaurs and these findings here.

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