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''Denversaurus'' ("Denver lizard") is a genus of herbivorous nodosaurid ankylosaurian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian) of western North America. Although treated as a junior synonym of ''Edmontonia'' by some workers, subsequent research indicates that it is a distinct nodosaurid genus. ==Discovery and naming== In 1922, Philip Reinheimer, a collector and technician employed by the Colorado Museum of Natural History, the predecessor of the present Denver Museum of Nature and Science, near the Dwito or Twito Ranch in Corson County, South Dakota discovered the fossil of an ankylosaurian. In 1943, Barnum Brown referred the find to ''Edmontonia longiceps''.〔B. Brown and E.M. Schlaikjer, 1943, "A study of the troödont dinosaurs with the description of a new genus and four new species", ''Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History'' 82(5): 115-150〕 In 1988, Robert Thomas Bakker decided to split the genus ''Edmontonia''. The species ''Edmontonia rugosidens'' he made into a separate genus ''Chassternbergia'' and the Denver fossil was named and described as a new genus and species. The type species of this genus was ''Denversaurus schlessmani''. The generic name referred to the Denver Museum of Natural History at Denver, Colorado. The specific name honoured Lee E. Schlessman, a major benefactor of the museum and the founder of the Schlessman Family Foundation.〔Bakker, R.T. (1988). "Review of the Late Cretaceous nodosauroid Dinosauria: ''Denversaurus schlessmani'', a new armor-plated dinosaur from the Latest Cretaceous of South Dakota, the last survivor of the nodosaurians, with comments on Stegosaur-Nodosaur relationships". ''Hunteria'' 1(3): 1-23.(1988).〕 The fossil the species is based on, the holotype DMNH 468, had been discovered in a layer of the late Maastrichtian-age Lance Formation of South Dakota. It consists of a skull, lacking the lower jaws, and osteoderms of the body armour. It is part of the collection of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science for which the genus was named. Bakker referred a second fossil to the species, specimen AMNH 3076, a skull found by Brown and Roland Bird at the Tornillo Creek in Brewster County, Texas, in a layer of the Aguja Formation, possibly from the Maastrichtian also.〔 The Black Hills Institute has found a nodosaurid skeleton in Niobrara County, Wyoming, nick-named "Tank", which it has identified as ''Denversaurus''. It contains the lower jaws, parts of the torso and about a hundred osteoderms. It is part of the collection of the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center under inventory number BHI 127327.〔Carpenter K., DiCroce T., Kinneer B., Simon R., 2013, "Pelvis of ''Gargoyleosaurus'' (Dinosauria: Ankylosauria) and the Origin and Evolution of the Ankylosaur Pelvis", ''PLoS ONE'' 8(11): e79887. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0079887〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Denversaurus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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