Re: Bison alticornis

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 95-10-27 13:09:37 EDT, pss1nw@surrey.ac.uk (Nigel Woodger)
writes:

>Would I be correct in thinking that this beast was originaly named from a 
>single horn which had been disturbed and was found in sediments much younger

>than those in which it had been originaly fossilized-this led Marsh to 
>belive it could not be a dinosaur. He identified it as a species of extinct 
>bison-hence the name-I belive the animal turned out to be a horned dinosaur.
>Anyone know if this is correct?

The type specimen is a pair of long horn-cores from the Lance Formation,
which was not well dated in those days. Marsh used the horn cores as evidence
for a Pleistocene dating for the formation when he coined _Bison alticornis_
for them. He didn't take long to retract this view, however. By the next
year, he had them in the late Cretaceous and was calling them _Ceratops
alticornis_.

G.O.