A team of eight museum staff members and several volunteers excavated 2 metric tons (2.2 short tons 2.0 long tons) of rock matrix in 54 blocks over a three-week period. The palaeontologists found more bone fragments at the site in February, but the entire skeleton could not be collected until May and June due to weather conditions at the pit. Milner, who identified it as belonging to a theropod dinosaur. Walker's son-in-law later brought the claw to the Natural History Museum of London, where it was examined by the British palaeontologists Alan J. He also found a phalanx bone and part of a rib. Walker returned to the same spot in the pit some weeks later, and found the missing part after searching for an hour. He found a rock wherein he discovered a large claw, but after piecing it together at home, he realised the tip of the claw was missing. Walker explored the Smokejacks Pit, a clay pit in the Weald Clay Formation near Ockley in Surrey, England. In January 1983 the British plumber and amateur fossil collector William J. Baryonyx may have had semiaquatic habits, and coexisted with other theropod, ornithopod, and sauropod dinosaurs, as well as pterosaurs, crocodiles, turtles and fishes, in a fluvial environment.Ĭast of the hand claw that the name Baryonyx was based on, in Palais de la Découverte, Paris The creature would have caught and processed its prey primarily with its forelimbs and large claws. It may also have been an active predator of larger prey and a scavenger, since it also contained bones of a juvenile iguanodontid.
Baryonyx was the first theropod dinosaur demonstrated to have been piscivorous (fish-eating), as evidenced by fish scales in the stomach region of the holotype specimen. Some researchers have suggested that Suchosaurus cultridens is a senior synonym (being an older name), and that Suchomimus tenerensis belongs in the same genus subsequent authors have kept them separate. Now recognised as a member of the family Spinosauridae, Baryonyx 's affinities were obscure when it was discovered. It had robust forelimbs, with the eponymous first-finger claw measuring about 31 centimetres (12 inches) long. One elongated neural spine indicates it may have had a hump or ridge along the centre of its back. The neck formed an S-shape, and the neural spines of its dorsal vertebrae increased in height from front to back. Baryonyx had a large number of finely serrated, conical teeth, with the largest teeth in front. It had a triangular crest on the top of its nasal bones. Behind this, the upper jaw had a notch which fitted into the lower jaw (which curved upwards in the same area). The tip of the snout expanded to the sides in the shape of a rosette. Baryonyx had a long, low, and narrow snout, which has been compared to that of a gharial. The holotype specimen, which may not have been fully grown, was estimated to have been between 7.5 and 10 metres (25 and 33 feet) long and to have weighed between 1.2 and 1.7 metric tons (1.3 and 1.9 short tons 1.2 and 1.7 long tons). Specimens later discovered in other parts of the United Kingdom and Iberia have also been assigned to the genus. The holotype specimen is one of the most complete theropod skeletons from the UK (and remains the most complete spinosaurid), and its discovery attracted media attention. The generic name, Baryonyx, means "heavy claw" and alludes to the animal's very large claw on the first finger the specific name, walkeri, refers to its discoverer, amateur fossil collector William J. The first skeleton was discovered in 1983 in the Smokejack Clay Pit, of Surrey, England, in sediments of the Weald Clay Formation, and became the holotype specimen of Baryonyx walkeri, named by palaeontologists Alan J. Baryonyx ( / ˌ b ær i ˈ ɒ n ɪ k s/) is a genus of theropod dinosaur which lived in the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous period, about 130–125 million years ago.