''Cumnoria'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

herbivorous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet. These more broadly also encompass animals that eat n ...

iguanodont Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (). They represent one of the most successful groups of herbivore, herbivorous dinosaurs during the Cretaceous. The most primitive members of the group were bipedal and rel ...

ian

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

. It was a basal iguanodontian that lived during the Late Jurassic period (

Kimmeridgian In the geologic timescale, the Kimmeridgian is an age in the Late Jurassic Epoch and a stage in the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 154.8 ±0.8 Ma and 149.2 ±0.7 Ma (million years ago). The Kimmeridgian follows the Oxfordian ...

age) in what is now

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Description

The holotype of ''Cumnoria'' is a rather small bipedal animal with a slender build, about 3.5 metres (11.4 feet) long. The specimen is a juvenile due to the general lack of fusion among all of its vertebrae and ribs. It can be distinguished from all other iguanodontians by the presence of a prominent ridge on the sternal process of the coracoid and an oval muscle scar on the front of the deltopectoral crest of the humerus. Uniquely among non-hadrosauriforms, the ventral and dorsal margins of the scapula only moderately diverge from each other, and there is no defined cingulum on the dentary teeth.

History of discovery

''Cumnoria'' is known from the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

OXFUM J.3303, a partial

skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

and postcranium, recovered from the lower

Kimmeridge Clay Formation The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary rock, sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation (geology), form ...

, in the Chawley Brick Pits,

Cumnor Hurst Hurst Hill or Cumnor Hurst is a biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Oxford in Oxfordshire. It is a Geological Conservation Review site. The site is owned by All Souls College, Oxford, and its mosses and liverwo ...

. Workers at first discarded the remains on a dump heap, but one of them later collected the bones in a sack and showed them to Professor

George Rolleston George Rolleston (30 July 1829 – 16 June 1881) was an English physician and zoologist. He was the first Linacre Professor of Anatomy and Physiology to be appointed at the University of Oxford, a post he held from 1860 until his death in 1881. ...

, an

anatomist Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

at the nearby

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. Rolleston in turn brought them to the attention of palaeontologist Professor

Joseph Prestwich Sir Joseph Prestwich (12 March 1812 – 23 June 1896) was a British geologist and businessman, known as an expert on the Tertiary Period and for having confirmed the findings of Boucher de Perthes of ancient flint tools in the Somme valley ...

who in 1879 reported them as a new species of ''Iguanodon'', though without actually coining a

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

. In 1880 Prestwich published an article on the geological

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

of the find. The same year

John Whitaker Hulke John Whitaker Hulke FRCS FRS FGS (6 November 1830 – 19 February 1895) was a British surgeon, geologist and fossil collector. He was the son of a physician in Deal, who became a Huxleyite despite being deeply religious. Hulke became Huxley' ...

named the species ''Iguanodon prestwichii'', the

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

honouring Prestwich. In

1888 Events January * January 3 – The great telescope (with an objective lens of diameter) at Lick Observatory in California is first used. * January 12 – The Schoolhouse Blizzard hits Dakota Territory and the states of Montana, M ...

Harry Govier Seeley Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 – 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist. Early life Seeley was born in London on 18 February 1839, the second son of Richard Hovill Seeley, a goldsmith, and his second wife Mary Govier. When his fa ...

decided the taxon represented a new and separate genus which he named ''Cumnoria'' after

Cumnor Cumnor is a village and civil parish 3½ miles (5.6 km) west of the centre of Oxford, England. The village is about 2 miles (3.2 km) south-west of Botley and its centre is west of the A420 road to Swindon. The parish includes Cumno ...

, the village where it was discovered. Its

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, 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 spe ...

''Iguanodon prestwichii'' was thus recombined into ''Cumnoria prestwichii'' — though Seeley spelled the epithet as ''prestwichi''. The genus was quickly abandoned however: already in 1889

Richard Lydekker Richard Lydekker (; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was a British naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history. He was known for his contributions to zoology, paleontology, and biogeography. He worked extensively in cata ...

assigned the species to ''Camptosaurus'', as ''Camptosaurus prestwichii''. This opinion was generally accepted for over a century. In 1980 Peter Galton provided the first modern description of the species. In 1998 David Norman concluded that Seeley's original generic distinction was valid. In 2008 this was supported by

Darren Naish Darren William Naish (born 26 September 1975) is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author and science communicator. As a researcher, he is best known for his work describing and reevaluating dinosaurs and other Mesozoic reptiles, including ...

and

David Martill {{Short pages monitor