''Nuthetes'' is the name given to 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 ...

, likely a dromaeosaurid, known only from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

teeth and jaw fragments found in rocks of the middle Berriasian ( Early Cretaceous) age in the Cherty Freshwater Member of the

Lulworth Formation The Lulworth Formation is a geologic formation in England. It dates from the late Tithonian to the mid Berriasian. It is a subunit of the Purbeck Group. In Dorset, it consists of three members, which are in ascending order, the Mupe Member, the ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and also the

Angeac-Charente bonebed The Angeac-Charente bonebed is a fossil deposit located near Angeac-Charente in western France. It dates to the Berriasian stage of the Early Cretaceous, and is coeval with the Purbeck Group of Southern England. It has amongst the most diverse asse ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. As a dromaeosaurid, ''Nuthetes'' would have been a small predator.

Discovery and naming

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 ...

, DORCM G 913, was collected by Charles Willcox, an amateur paleontologist living at Swanage, from the Feather Quarry near

Durlston Bay Durlston Bay (also known as Durdlestone Bay) is a small bay next to a country park of the same name, just south of the resort of Swanage, on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset, England. It has been a renowned site for Lower Cretaceous fossils since the ...

in a marine deposition of Cherty Freshwater Member of the

, dating from the middle Berriasian. It consists of an about three inch long left dentary fragment with nine teeth. The holotype was once thought to be lost but was rediscovered in the seventies in the Dorset County Museum. Later several other teeth and specimen BMNH 48207, another dentary fragment from a somewhat smaller individual, were referred to the species. Owen in 1878 also assumed some fossilised scutes, of a type for which he coined the name "granicones", belonged to ''Nuthetes'' but these were in 2002 shown to be limb or tail osteoderms of a turtle, possibly ''"

Helochelydra ''Helochelydra'' is an extinct genus of extinct stem turtle known from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) of the Isle of Wight, southern England. Phylogeny ''Helochelydra'' is a member of the stem turtle family Helochelydridae, which is known from ...

" anglica'' or ''"H." bakewelli''. In 2006 a tooth from

found at the Berriasian aged Cherves-de-Cognac locality, specimen CHEm03.537, was referred to a ''Nuthetes'' sp. Some large specimens referred to ''Nuthetes'' may instead belong to '' Dromaeosauroides''. Additional teeth have been attributed to ''Nuthetes'' from the nearby

in western France.Ronan Allain, Romain Vullo, Lee Rozada, Jérémy Anquetin, Renaud Bourgeais, et al.
Vertebrate paleobiodiversity of the Early Cretaceous (Berriasian) Angeac-Charente Lagerstätte (southwestern France): implications for continental faunal turnover at the J/K boundary
Geodiversitas, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle Paris, In press. ffhal-03264773f The genus ''Nuthetes'' contains one species (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 ...

), ''Nuthetes destructor''. ''N. destructor'' was named and described by Richard Owen in 1854. The generic name ''Nuthetes'' is derived from the Koine Greek ''nouthetes'', a contraction of νουθέτητης (''nouthetetes'') meaning "one who admonishes" or "a monitor," in reference to the similarity of ''Nuthetes'' teeth to those of a modern monitor lizard. The specific name is

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for "destroyer", a reference to "the adaptations of the teeth for piercing, cutting, and lacerating the prey" of a form he estimated to be equal in size to the present

Bengal monitor The Bengal monitor (''Varanus bengalensis''), also called the common Indian monitor, is a monitor lizard distributed widely in the Indian Subcontinent, as well as parts of Southeast Asia and West Asia. This large lizard is mainly a terrestrial a ...

Classification

''Nuthetes'' was originally classified by Owen as a lizard and a varanid; later he changed his mind concluding it was a crocodilian. Only in 1888 Richard Lydekker did understand it was a dinosaur. In 1934 William Elgin Swinton thought it was a juvenile member of the

Megalosauridae Megalosauridae is a monophyletic family of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs within the group Megalosauroidea. Appearing in the Middle Jurassic, megalosaurids were among the first major radiation of large theropod dinosaurs. They were a relatively ...

. In 1970 Rodney Steel even renamed the species ''

Megalosaurus ''Megalosaurus'' (meaning "great lizard", from Greek , ', meaning 'big', 'tall' or 'great' and , ', meaning 'lizard') is an extinct genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic period (Bathonian stage, 166 million years ...

destructor''. In 2002 however, a re-examination of the fossils by paleontologist Angela Milner showed that they most likely belonged to a subadult dromaeosaurid. Steve Sweetman examined five good specimens of fossil teeth and confirmed that they belong to ''Nuthetes destructor'', and concluded that this species is a

velociraptorine Velociraptorinae is a subfamily of the theropod group Dromaeosauridae. The earliest velociraptorines are probably ''Nuthetes'' from the United Kingdom, and possibly '' Deinonychus'' from North America. However, several indeterminate velociraptori ...

dromaeosaurid. If this placement is correct, it would have been one of the oldest dromaeosaurids known, the first to be described, and the first known from Britain. However, Rauhut, Milner and Moore-Fay (2010) pointed out the great similarity of the teeth of basal

tyrannosauroid Tyrannosauroidea (meaning 'tyrant lizard forms') is a superfamily (or clade) of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaurs that includes the family Tyrannosauridae as well as more basal relatives. Tyrannosauroids lived on the Laurasian supercontinent b ...

Proceratosaurus ''Proceratosaurus'' is a genus of carnivorous theropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic ( Bathonian) of England. ''Proceratosaurus'' was a small dinosaur, measuring in length and in body mass.Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2008) ''Dinosaurs: The Mos ...

'' to the teeth of velociraptorine dromaeosaurids. The authors recommended caution when referring to isolated teeth from the Late Jurassic or Early Cretaceous to the Dromaeosauridae (explicitly citing Milner's 2002 study and Sweetman's 2004 study as examples of studies that identified isolated theropod teeth as belonging to dromaeosaurids), as these teeth might belong to proceratosaurid tyrannosauroids instead. According to Milner, ''Nuthetes'' can be diagnosed for having a tooth denticle size difference index ranging from 1-14 to 1-55.

References

External links

Extensive description
from the Milner paper, on the Dinosaur Mailing List. {{Taxonbar, from=Q957171 Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Europe Eudromaeosaurs Fossil taxa described in 1854 Taxa named by Richard Owen

Discovery and naming

Classification

See also

References

External links