The fossil remains of a 125-million-year-old plant-eating dinosaur have been discovered on England’s Isle of Wight, marking the most complete specimen found in Britain in a century. Weighing around 900 kilograms (1,990 lbs), similar to a large male American bison, this herbivorous dinosaur was likely a herding animal, according to Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth who participated in the excavation.
The dinosaur, consisting of 149 bones, was unearthed in the cliffs of Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight in 2013 by the late fossil collector Nick Chase. It was named “Comptonatus chasei” in his honor.
Read more: Archaeologists Discover Marble God Statue in Roman Sewer
“Nick had a phenomenal nose for finding dinosaur bones … This really is a remarkable find,” Lockwood said. “It helps us understand more about the different types of dinosaurs that lived in England in the Early Cretaceous,” added Lockwood, who is also the lead author of a new paper describing the species published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
In 2022, remains of a meat-eating dinosaur, an ancient predator larger than any known from Europe, were also discovered on the island, dating back to the Cretaceous Period.
