Discovery and naming
The holotype was discovered in 1840 by Mr H. B. Mackeson. In 1841, Richard Owen noted on the fossils.[3] The holotype, NHMUK 14695, was listed by Owen as "portions of the corocoid, humerus and ulna, iliac, ischial and pubic bones, a large portion of the shaft of a femur, parts of a tibia and fibula, and several metatarsal bones". Owen assigned the specimen to the pliosaur Polyptychodon.[3] In 1850, Gideon Mantell assigned the specimen to Pelorosaurus[1] but Richard Owen placed the fossils in a separate genus, Dinodocus, in 1884. In 1908, Dinodocus was synonymized with Pelorosaurus again, this time by Arthur Smith Woodward.[4] In 2004, Paul Upchurch and colleagues considered Dinodocus a nomen dubium based on indeterminate sauropod material.[2]
