Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Where were the first Baryonyx fossils found?
Baryonyx (/ˌbæriˈɒnɪks/) is a genus of theropod dinosaur which lived in the Barremian stage of the Early Cretaceous Period, about 130–125 million years ago. The first skeleton was discovered in 1983 in the Weald Clay Formation of Surrey, England, and became the holotype specimen of B. walkeri, named by palaeontologists Alan J. Charig and Angela C. Milner in 1986. 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. Walker. 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. Specimens later discovered in other parts of the United Kingdom and Iberia have also been assigned to the genus.
Elgin Reptiles is the name given to the Permian and Triassic fossils found in the sandstone deposits in and around the town of Elgin, in Moray, Scotland. They are of great historical and scientific importance, and many of the specimens are housed in the Elgin Museum, and some in the Hunterian in Glasgow, and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The Elgin Reptiles include the dinosauriform "Saltopus elginensis", the dicynodont "Gordonia", and the pareiasaur "Elginia". There are also many footprints and tail-drags associated with the same Permian and Triassic sandstone deposits.
The sandstone in the Elgin area was originally quarried for building materials. The quarries were where the first reptile fossils were found, and they have continued to yield fossils to this day.
The first Elgin Reptile was discovered in 1844, but because it was only a few scales scientists of the time believed it was an Old Red Sandstone fish fossil, which were relatively well-known from sites across Northern Scotland. In 1851 a second indisputably reptilian fossil was found. Fossils of "Gordonia" were first found by Scottish naturalist Ramsay Heatley Traquair in 1885 and E.T. Newton described several key fossil specimens.
In 1998, Sereno and colleagues defined two subfamilies within the Spinosauridae based on craniodental (skull and tooth) characteristics. They were Spinosaurinae, where they placed "Spinosaurus" and "Irritator"; and Baryonychinae, to which they assigned "Baryonyx, Suchomimus," and "Cristatusaurus". Spinosaurines were distinguished by their unserrated, straighter, and more widely spaced teeth, as well as smaller first teeth of the premaxilla."" In 2005, Dal Sasso and colleagues assumed "Irritator"s nostrils as being located above the middle of the maxillary tooth row; more posteriorly than in baryonychines, but less so than in "Spinosaurus". Sales and Schultz in 2017 found that "Irritator"s nostrils were in fact positioned closer to the front of the jaw, as in "Baryonyx" and "Suchomimus"; this more forward nostril placement was typically considered characteristic of baryonychines. Nevertheless, "Irritator" also bore unserrated teeth, a trait associated with spinosaurines. Sales and Schultz thus noted that the Araripe Basin spinosaurids "Irritator" and "Angaturama" might represent intermediate forms between the earlier baryonychines and later spinosaurines, and that further research may eventually render the former a paraphyletic (unnatural) group.
In a 2014 conference abstract, the American palaeontologist Danny Anduza and Fowler pointed out that grizzly bears do not gaff fish out of the water as was suggested for Baryonyx, and also ruled out that the dinosaur would not have darted its head like herons, since the necks of spinosaurids were not strongly S-curved, and their eyes were not well-positioned for binocular vision. Instead, they suggested the jaws would have made sideways sweeps to catch fish, like the gharial, with the hand claws probably used to stamp down and impale large fish, whereafter they manipulated them with their jaws, in a manner similar to grizzly bears and fishing cats. They did not find the teeth of spinosaurids suitable for dismembering prey, due to their lack of serrations, and suggested they would have swallowed prey whole (while noting they could also have used their claws for dismemberment).[53] A 2016 study by the Belgian palaeontologist Christophe Hendrickx and colleagues found that adult spinosaurs could displace their mandibular rami (halves of the lower jaw) sideways when the jaw was depressed, which allowed the pharynx (opening that connects the mouth to the oesophagus) to be widened. This jaw-articulation is similar to that seen in pterosaurs and living pelicans, and would likewise have allowed spinosaurids to swallow large prey such as fish and other animals. They also reported that the possible Portuguese Baryonyx fossils were found associated with isolated Iguanodon teeth, and listed it along with other such associations as support for opportunistic feeding behaviour in spinosaurs.[31] Another 2016 study by the French palaeontologist Romain Vullo and colleagues found that the jaws of spinosaurids were convergent with those of pike conger eels; these fish also have jaws that are compressed side to side (whereas the jaws of crocodilians are compressed from top to bottom), an elongated snout with a "terminal rosette" that bears enlarged teeth, and a notch behind the rosette with smaller teeth. Such jaws likely evolved for grabbing prey in aquatic environments with low light, and may have helped in prey detection.[54]
The first settlers arrived in the Christmas Lake Valley around 1865. In June 1877, John Whiteaker (a former governor of Oregon) visited the Christmas Valley basin. During the trip, Whiteaker explored the Fossil Lake area, where he found a large dry lakebed with two small alkali ponds in low spots. Whiteaker named the ponds the "Fossil Lakes". In addition, he found numerous exposed fossils throughout the area, including elephant, camel, horse, and elk fossils, as well as fossils from animals that Whiteaker could not identify. He noted that horse and bird fossils were particularly plentiful. He also found ancient human artifacts. Whiteaker reported that fossils were scattered across a large swath of desert running from southwest to northeast. He estimated that the fossil beds were wide and over long. After his trip, Whiteaker delivered his fossils to Thomas Condon, a well-known paleontologist and professor at the University of Oregon.
Many important fossils have been found in the sandstones and clays of the Weald, including, for example, "Baryonyx". The famous scientific hoax of Piltdown Man was claimed to have come from a gravel pit at Piltdown near Uckfield. The first "Iguanodon" was identified after a Mary Mantell unearthed some fossilised teeth by a road in Sussex in 1822. Her husband, Gideon Mantell, noticed they were similar to modern iguana teeth but many times larger; this important find led to the discovery of dinosaurs.
In their original description, Charig and Milner[1] found Baryonyx unique enough to warrant a new family of theropod dinosaurs: Baryonychidae. They found Baryonyx to be unlike any other theropod group, and considered the possibility that it was a thecodont (a grouping of early archosaurs now considered unnatural), due to having apparently primitive features[1], but noted that the articulation of the maxilla and premaxilla was similar to that in Dilophosaurus. They also noted that the two snouts from Niger (which later became the basis of Cristatusaurus), assigned to the family Spinosauridae by Taquet in 1984, appeared almost identical to that of Baryonyx and they referred them to Baryonychidae instead.[1] In 1988, the American palaeontologist Gregory S. Paul agreed with Taquet that Spinosaurus, described in 1915 based on fragmentary remains from Egypt that were destroyed in World War II, and Baryonyx were similar and (due to their kinked snouts) possibly late-surviving dilophosaurs.[36] Buffetaut also supported this relationship in 1989.[40] In 1990, Charig and Milner dismissed the spinosaurid affinities of Baryonyx, since they did not find their remains similar enough.[6] In 1997, they agreed that Baryonychidae and Spinosauridae were related, but disagreed that the former name should become a synonym of the latter, because the completeness of Baryonyx compared to Spinosaurus made it a better type genus for a family, and because they did not find the similarities between the two significant enough.[3] Holtz and colleagues listed Baryonychidae as a synonym of Spinosauridae in 2004.[15]
Ichthyosaur fossils of the species "Shonisaurus popularis" were first discovered in the area in 1928. Excavations were conducted through the 1960s, and the remains of approximately 40 ichthyosaurs were found. Until 2004, these remains included the largest ichthyosaurs ever discovered. Several specimens were left where they were found, and can be viewed by the public. These specimens are protected from the elements by a large barn. The fossils are about a 10-minute drive from the Berlin ghost town. The ichthyosaur fossils were designated a National Natural Landmark in 1973.
The nostrils were set far back on the skull, at least behind the teeth of the premaxillae, instead of at the front of the snout as in most theropods. Those of "Baryonyx" and "Suchomimus" were large and started between the first and fourth maxillary teeth, while "Spinosaurus"'s nostrils were far smaller and more retracted. "Irritator"'s nostrils were positioned similarly to those of "Baryonyx" and "Suchomimus", and were between those of "Spinosaurus" and "Suchomimus" in size. Spinosaurids had long secondary palates, bony and rugose structures on the roof of their mouths that are also found in extant crocodilians, but not in most theropod dinosaurs. "Oxalaia" had a particularly wrinkled and elaborate secondary palate, while most spinosaurs had smoother ones.
Now recognised as a member of the family Spinosauridae, Baryonyx's affinities were obscure when it was discovered. 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. 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. It may also have been an active predator of larger prey and a scavenger, since it also contained bones of a juvenile Iguanodon. The creature would have caught and processed its prey primarily with its forelimbs and large claws. 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.
In a 1986 publication, British paleontologists Alan Charig and Angela Milner considered Taquet's jaw elements nearly indistinguishable from those of the spinosaurid "Baryonyx walkeri"; which they were describing on the basis of a partial skeleton from the Barremian of the Weald Clay Formation, England. A 1997 followup to this preliminary paper referred MNHN GDF 365 and 366 to an indeterminate "Baryonyx" species, regardless of their younger geological age. In 1998, Taquet and American geologist Dale Russell used the bones to erect the new genus "Cristatusaurus," with the type species being "Cristatusaurus lapparenti". Its generic name is derived from the Latin "crista" (for "crest"), and refers to a sagittal crest on the snout. The specific name honors the late French paleontologist Albert-Félix de Lapparent, due to his contributions to dinosaur-related discoveries in the Sahara. In the same paper, several skull and vertebral fossils from the Tademaït of Algeria were attributed to a new species of "Spinosaurus" called "S. maroccanus," which was described and compared to "Cristatusaurus". "Spinosaurus maroccanus" is now considered by most paleontologists either a "nomen dubium" (name of uncertain application)"" or one synonymous with "S. aegyptiacus." Two months after Taquet and Russel published their paper, another spinosaurid genus and species was named from the Erlhaz Formation, "Suchomimus tenerensis." Its describers, the American paleontologist Paul Sereno and colleagues, agreed with Charig and Milner in that there was no distinction between the skull fossils of "Baryonyx" and "Cristatusaurus"; concluding that the latter was a "nomen dubium"."" In a 2003 analysis, German paleontologist Oliver Rauhut concurred with this.""
Baryonychines have been found in Africa, with "Suchomimus" and "Cristatusaurus," as well as in Europe, with "Baryonyx" and "Suchosaurus". "Baryonyx-"like teeth are also reported from the Ashdown Sands of Sussex, in England, and the Burgos Province, in Spain. A partial skeleton and many fossil teeth indicate spinosaurids were widespread in Asia. As of 2012, three have been named: "Ichthyovenator," "Siamosaurus" and ""Sinopliosaurus" fusuiensis". In 2014, a spinosaurid tooth was discovered in Malaysia; the first dinosaur remains discovered in the country. At la Cantalera-1, a site in the Early Barremanian Blesa Formation in Treul, Spain, two types of spinosaurid teeth were found, and they were assigned, tentatively, as indeterminate spinosaurine and baryonychine taxa. An intermediate spinosaurid was discovered in the Early Cretaceous Eumeralla Formation, Australia. It is known from a single 4 cm long partial cervical vertebra, designated NMV P221081. It is missing most of the neural arch. The specimen is from a juvenile estimated to be about 2 to 3 meters long (6–9 ft). Out of all spinosaurs it most closely resembles "Baryonyx".
In 1983, a relatively complete skeleton was excavated from the Smokejacks pit in Surrey, Engand. These remains were described by British paleontologists Alan J. Charig and Angela C. Milner in 1986 as the holotype of a new species, "Baryonyx walkeri." After the discovery of "Baryonyx," many new genera have since been described, the majority on very incomplete remains. However, other finds bear enough fossil material and distinct anatomical features to be assigned with confidence. Paul Sereno and colleagues described "Suchomimus" in 1998"," a baryonychine from Niger on the basis of a partial skeleton found in 1997. Later in 2004, partial jaw bones were recovered from the Alcântara Formation, these were referred to a new genus of spinosaurine named "Oxalaia" in 2011 by Alexander Kellner.
Baryonyx is an Italian alternative electro rock band founded in Livorno (Italy) in 2008. 
Fossil remains of "Neovenator" have been found on the Isle of Wight off southern England, and were first discovered in the 20th century. "Neovenator" perhaps existed alongside other dinosaurs found in the Wessex Formation of the early Cretaceous period, such as "Baryonyx", "Polacanthus" and "Iguanodon". The holotype bones were mixed with those of the plant-eater "Mantellisaurus" and in the dig site also remains of fishes, amphibians, lizards, pterosaurs and Goniopholididae were present. "Neovenator" was one of the apex predators of its day.
Discoveries in the 1990s shed more light on the relationships of Baryonyx and its relatives. In 1996, a snout from Morocco was referred to Spinosaurus, and Irritator and Angaturama from Brazil (the two are possible synonyms) were named.[41][27] Cristatusaurus and Suchomimus were named based on fossils from Niger in 1998. In their description of Suchomimus, Sereno and colleagues placed it and Baryonyx in the new subfamily Baryonychinae within Spinosauridae; Spinosaurus and Irritator were placed in the subfamily Spinosaurinae. Baryonychinae was distinguished by the small size and larger number of teeth in the dentary behind the terminal rosette, the deeply keeled front dorsal vertebrae, and by having serrated teeth. Spinosaurinae was distinguished by their straight tooth crowns without serrations, small first tooth in the premaxilla, increased spacing of teeth in the jaws, and possibly by having their nostrils placed further back and the presence of a deep neural spine sail.[26][38][26] They also united the spinosaurids and their closest relatives in the superfamily Spinosauroidea, but in 2010, the British palaeontologist Roger Benson considered this a junior synonym of Megalosauroidea (an older name).[42] In a 2007 conference abstract, the American palaeontologist Denver W. Fowler suggested that since Suchosaurus is the first named genus in its group, the clade names Spinosauroidea, Spinosauridae, and Baryonychinae should be replaced by Suchosauroidea, Suchosauridae, and Suchosaurinae, regardless of whether or not the name Baryonyx is retained.[25] A 2017 study by the Brazilian palaeontologists Marcos A. F. Sales and Cesar L. Schultz found that the clade Baryonychinae was not well supported, since serrated teeth may be an ancestral trait among spinosaurids.[32]
Spinosaurids are known to exist from as early as the Late Jurassic, through characteristic teeth which were found in Tendaguru, Tanzania, and attributed to "Ostafrikasaurus." Baryonychines were common, as represented by "Baryonyx", which lived during the Barremian of England and Spain. "Baryonyx"-like teeth are found from the earlier Hauterivian and later Aptian sediments of Spain, as well as the Hauterivian of England, and the Aptian of Niger. The earliest record of spinosaurines is from Africa; they are present in Albian sediments of Tunisia and Algeria, and in Cenomanian sediments of Egypt and Morocco. Spinosaurines are also found in Hauterivian and Aptian-Albian sediments of Thailand, and Southern China. In Africa, baronychines were common in the Aptian, and then replaced by spinosaurines in the Albian and Cenomanian.
Within the Spinosauridae, "Suchomimus" was a member of the subfamily Baryonychinae. Apart from its possibly higher back crest, "Suchomimus" was very similar to the spinosaurid "Baryonyx" from the Barremian of England which also had strong forelimbs and a huge sickle-curved claw on its "thumb". And, as with "Suchomimus", the claw of "Baryonyx" had been the first fossil part to be found in the field. The holotype of "Suchomimus" was considerably larger than that of "Baryonyx", but the ages of the two individuals are not known.
In 2002, the German palaeontologist Hans-Dieter Sues and colleagues concluded that "Suchomimus" was identical to "Cristatusaurus lapparenti" found in the same formation of Niger and, despite "Cristatusaurus" having been named somewhat earlier than "Suchomimus", proposed them to represent a second species of "Baryonyx" called "Baryonyx tenerensis". Sereno and colleagues in 1998 analyzed the distribution of forty-five traits to produce a cladogram that showed "Suchomimus" and "Baryonyx" to be distinct but closely related.
"Scheenstia" is frequently pictured as the prey of the large dinosaur "Baryonyx walkeri" because the scales and teeth of these fish were found in the stomach region of a fossil "B. walkeri" specimen. The fish remains were previously referred to the related genus "Lepidotes", but all Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous species of that genus have since been re-classified as "Scheenstia" following detailed phylogenetic analysis.
Fossils of "Shonisaurus" were first found in a large deposit in Nevada in 1920. Thirty years later, they were excavated, uncovering the remains of 37 very large ichthyosaurs. These were named "Shonisaurus", which means "lizard from the Shoshone Mountains", after the formation where the fossils were found.
Direct fossil evidence shows that spinosaurids fed on fish as well as a variety of other small to medium-sized animals, including dinosaurs. "Baryonyx" was found with scales of the prehistoric fish "Scheenstia" in its body cavity, and these were abraded, hypothetically by gastric juices. Bones of a young "Iguanodon", also abraded, were found alongside this specimen. If these represent "Baryonyx"’s meal, the animal was, whether in this case a hunter, or a scavenger, an eater of more diverse fare than fish. Moreover, there is a documented example of a spinosaurid having eaten a pterosaur, as one "Irritator" tooth was found embedded within the fossil vertebrae of an ornithocheirid pterosaur found in the Romualdo Formation of Brazil. This may represent a predation or a scavenging event. In the Sao Khua Formation of Thailand, isolated tooth crowns from "Siamosaurus" have been found in association with sauropod remains, indicating possible predation or scavenging.
In 1986, Charig and Milner named a new genus and species with the skeleton as holotype specimen: Baryonyx walkeri. The generic name derives from ancient Greek; βαρύς (barys) means "heavy" or "strong", and ὄνυξ (onyx) means "claw" or "talon". The specific name honours Walker, for discovering the specimen. At that time, the authors did not know if the large claw belonged to the hand or the foot (as in dromaeosaurs, which it was then assumed to be[9]). The dinosaur had been presented earlier the same year during a lecture at a conference about dinosaur systematics in Drumheller. Due to ongoing work on the bones (70 percent had been prepared at the time), they called their article preliminary and promised a more detailed description at a later date. Baryonyx was the first large Early Cretaceous theropod found anywhere in the world by that time.[1][6] Before the discovery of Baryonyx the last significant theropod find in the United Kingdom was Eustreptospondylus in 1871, and in a 1986 interview Charig called Baryonyx "the best find of the century" in Europe.[3][4] Baryonyx was widely featured in international media, and was nicknamed "Claws" by journalists punning on the title of the film Jaws. Its discovery was the subject of a 1987 BBC documentary, and a cast of the skeleton is mounted at the Natural History Museum in London. In 1997, Charig and Milner published a monograph describing the holotype skeleton in detail.[3][10][5] The holotype specimen remains the most completely known spinosaurid skeleton.[11]
In 2016, the Spanish palaeontologist Alejandro Serrano-Martínez and colleagues reported the oldest known spinosaurid fossil, a tooth from the Middle Jurassic of Niger, which they found to suggest that spinosaurids originated in Gondwana, since other known Jurassic spinosaurid teeth are also from Africa, but they found the subsequent dispersal routes unclear.[43] Candeiro and colleagues suggested in 2017 that spinosaurids of northern Gondwana were replaced by other predators, such as abelisauroids, since no definite spinosaurid fossils are known from after the Cenomanian anywhere in the world. They attributed the disappearance of spinosaurids and other shifts in the fauna of Gondwana to changes in the environment, perhaps caused by transgressions in sea level.[33]
"Erettopterus" has been found in North America and in Europe. The Llandovery deposits in Lesmahagow, where the first fossils of "E. bilobus" were found, preserve fossils of a large amount of other eurypterids, including "Nanahughmilleria lanceolata", "Hardieopterus lanarkensis", "Eusarcana obesus", "Parastylonurus sigmoidalis", "Carcinosoma scorpionis" and "Slimonia acuminata". Other organisms found in the zone include the gastropod "Euomphalopterus", the hyperoartid "Jamoytius" or the thelodontid "Logania". The deposits of the Rootsikula Formation in Saaremaa in which fossils of "E. laticauda" and "E. osiliensis" have been found shelter various faunas of eurypterids such as "Mixopterus simonsi", "Strobilopterus laticeps" and "Eysyslopterus patteni". Fossil remains of indeterminate osteostracids and thelodontids have also been found. Other fossils have also been found in different places, such as Great Britain, Canada, Scandinavia and the United States.
For many years after Romer's gap was first recognised, only two sites yielding Tournaisian-age tetrapod fossils were known; one is in East Lothian, Scotland, and another in Blue Beach, Nova Scotia, where in 1841, Sir William Logan, the first Director of the Geological Survey of Canada, found footprints from a tetrapod. Blue Beach maintains a fossil museum that displays hundreds of Tournaisian fossils, which continue to be found as the cliff erodes to reveal new fossils.