Hypsilophodon
HIP-sih-LOF-oh-don
- Wetlands
The Hypsilophodon was an omnivorous dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous period. Growing up to 2m long, the Hypsilophodon would use its sharp beak to shear off plant material for consumption. An excellent runner, the Hypsilophodon was bipedal and had an opposable fifth digit on each hand that could be used to grasp vegetation.
Discovery
Hypsilophodon was first discovered in 1849 in the Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight. Unfortunately, the specimen was split between two different paleontologists, and the two halves were only brought back together at a later date. For twenty years, the specimen was believed to be a type of iguanodon. It was only when anthropologist Thomas Henry Huxley later examined the skeleton in detail that he was able to announce the Hypsilophodon as a new species in 1869.
Palaeoecology
Hypsilophodon lived in what is now the Isle of Wight, England, when it was a semi-arid shrubland floodplain with a foundation of sandstone-studded mudstone. The 1km wide Hypsilophodon Bed in the Wessex Formation has produced over one hundred complete Hypsilophodon skeletons.
Information
- Era
- Early Cretaceous
- Family
- Hypsilophodontidae
- Genus
- Hypsilophodon
- height
- 0.9M
- length
- 1.8M
- weight
- 20Kg
- Diet
- Ground Paleobotany
- Egg batch size
- 1 - 4
