Metriacanthosaurus

Metriacanthosaurus is a genus of metriacanthosaurid dinosaur from the upper Oxford Clay of England, dating to the mid-Jurassic Period, about 160 million years ago.

In 1923, German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene wrote a paper on Jurassicand Cretaceous European carnivorous dinosaurs. In this paper, he examined a specimen, OUM J.12144, including an incomplete hip, a leg bone, and part of a backbone, assigning it to a new species of Megalosaurus: Megalosaurus parkeri. The specific name honours W. Parker who in the nineteenth century had collected the fossils near Jordan's Cliff at Weymouth. These bones were from the Oxford Clay Formation, which is from the Upper Jurassic.

In 1932, however, von Huene concluded it was species of Altispinax, A. parkeri.

In 1964, scientist Alick Walker decided these fossils were too different from Altispinax, as it lacked the long vertebral spines, and named a new genus, Metriacanthosaurus. The generic name is derived from Greek metrikos, "moderate", and akantha, "spine". Metriacanthosaurus thus gets its name from its vertebrae, which are taller than typical carnosaurs, like Allosaurus, but lower than other high-spined dinosaurs like Acrocanthosaurus.