Abstract
In 1878, Oramel Lucas shipped to E.D. Cope of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, a huge 1.5-m-tall neural spine from the dorsal vertebra of a sauropod (from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation) that Cope named and illustrated as Amphicoelis fragillimus.The holotype was lost and all that is known of the specimen is from Cope's original publication. Reanalysis of Cope's publication in light of other sauropods discovered since 1878 indicates that Amphicoelias fragillimus is a basal rebbachisaurid characterized by pneumatic neural spine and arch, and the unambiguous rebbachisaurid character of a festooned spinodiapophyseallamina. Because the specimen can no longer be referred to the basal diplodo coid Amphicoelias, the genus name is replaced with Maraapunisaurus n.g. As a rebbachisaurid, revised dimensions indicate a dorsal vertebra 2.4 m tall and a head-to-tail length for the animal of30.3 to 32m, significantly less than previous estimates.
Highlights
Between 1877 and 1884, school teacher Oramel Lucas and his brother Ira discovered and excavated numerous dinosaur specimens from the vicinity of a prominent conical hill
Reanalysis of Cope’s publication in light of other sauropods discovered since 1878 indicates that Amphicoelias fragillimus is a basal rebbachisaurid characterized by pneumatic neural spine and arch, and the unambiguous rebbachisaurid character of a festooned spinodiapophyseal lamina
Referred to the specimen as a “posterior dorsal vertebrae” and could not have identified it as a D-10 contrary to Woodruff and Foster (2014, p. 213) because the sauropod dorsal counts were unknown at this time
Summary
Between 1877 and 1884, school teacher Oramel Lucas and his brother Ira discovered and excavated numerous dinosaur specimens from the vicinity of a prominent conical hill GPPS docs – archives of the Garden Park Paleontological Society housed at the Royal Gorge Regional Museum and History Center, Cañon City, Colorado Despite these letters, some of these specimens were never found, e.g., Mesohippus cuneatus, AMNH 6293, “These types could not be identified when Cope’s Colorado collection was catalogued by W.D. Matthew.” Combination of characters, including extremely tall neural arch to the base of the postzygapophyses (estimated approximately 1/3 total height of the specimen); unbifurcated, structured neural spine with spinopostzygapophyseal laminae joined dorsally to form the postspinal lamina; pneumatic camerae in neural arch and paired pneumatic foramina pierce the neural spine on each side of the postspinal lamina just above where spinopostzygapophyseal laminae join; hyposphene present; the postspinal lamina extends dorsally the entire preserved length of neural spine and with the spinodiapophyseal + spinopostzygapophyseal(?) laminae give the neural spine a simple T-shaped cross section
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