Baryonix walkeri
Baryonix was first brought to light by the discovery of a single huge thumb claw in 1983 by amateur rock hound William Walker, (hence the species name walkeri) The claw was encased in a large concretion at the Smokejack clay pit near Dorking England. The clay was mined here to make bricks. This pit was part of the Wealden formation, A well known early cretaceous fauna and flora that has been heavily collected for 150 years. The quarry back then lay in low, marshy area with river deltas emptying into the sea .The area was heavily vegetated as evidenced by the rich plant fossil record found there. Mr. Walker showed his find to paleontologists at the Natural History museum in London. Their curiosity peaked, the paleontologists returned to the quarry to see if any of the skeleton was left to be found. Sure enough, there were many bones still in place encased in iron-clay nodules just as the claw had been. The beast that came to light after many months of excavation and preparation was unlike any Therapod dinosaur yet known. With its long slender snout and many conical teeth, 32 in the lower jaw alone! that's about twice the number of other large carnivorous dinosaurs which number around 16 to 20. With this strange head there was some initial confusion during the preparation and for a time it was thought that Baryonix was some sort of crocodile. Baryonix' head was marvelously adapted in a parallel fashion to a crocodile or Gahrial for grabbing slippery prey, see baryonix' relative Suchomimus for more discussion on this. Fish, snakes, eels and probably anything else were on the menu for Baryonix. In fact fish bones that had been etched by stomach acid were found in the stomach region of the Baryonix skeleton.
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