Ornithischians
Angeac dinosaurs · Ornithischia
From small bipeds to plated and armoured herbivores: ornithischians reveal a diversity that giant bones alone might overshadow.
At Angeac-Charente around 140 million years ago, several herbivorous dinosaur lineages shared the landscape with sauropods and theropods. Ornithischians form a major evolutionary group, rather than a single family. Teeth, bones and, for stegosaurs, footprints document their presence.
Ornithopods and iguanodontians
A tooth and a femur establish the presence of camptosaurids at Angeac.
Camptosaurids belong to the iguanodontians, a group that also includes the genus Iguanodon. Angeac’s fossils are assigned to Camptosauridae; their species remains undetermined.
Tooth crown shape, its surface features and femoral anatomy are compared with other European dinosaurs.
Stegosaurs and ankylosaurs
The stegosaur: bones and footprints
Stegosaurs are the plated and spiked dinosaurs. The 2022 study describes 84 identified skeletal elements, mainly vertebrae and ribs, and one tooth. Bones clustered in one area may belong to a single individual.
These remains are assigned to Dacentrurus sp., with a discussion of European stegosaur relationships. Natural casts of footprints of the type Deltapodus provide additional evidence of these animals’ presence.
The ankylosaur: less abundant evidence
A tooth and an osteoderm—a bone embedded in the skin’s armour—also establish ankylosaurs in the material described in 2022. Their species remains undetermined.
Small ornithischians
Screen-washing sediment reveals much smaller dinosaurs. Some teeth are compared with small ornithopods traditionally called “hypsilophodontids” in the 2022 assessment. This name reflects the identification used in that study, without implying a complete reconstruction of the animal.
Other teeth are assigned to Echinodon sp., a heterodontosaurid. These small dinosaurs had teeth of different shapes depending on their position in the jaw.
A sample of teeth is therefore not a list in which every different shape necessarily represents a new species. Tooth position, wear and anatomical features must be compared.
Original sources
- Allain et al., 2022 · Inventory of Angeac-Charente vertebrates : ornithischians pp. 709–715, figures 21–23. Numbers quoted refer to the material studied in this publication.
- How anatomical features identify a dinosaur.
