ZoomDinosaurs.com Dinosaur and Paleontology Dictionary

BODY FOSSILS Body fossils are fossilized body parts, such as bones, teeth, claws, skin, and embryos.

BOLIDE A bolide is a meteor, asteroid, or comet that hits the Earth and explodes.

BONAPARTE, JOSÉ José F. Bonaparte is an Argentinian paleontologist who had found and/or named many South American dinosaurs. He named: the family Abelisauridae and Abelisaurus (with F.E. Novas,1985), Alvarezsaurus (1991), Amargasaurus (with Salgado, 1991), Andesaurus (with Calvo, 1991), Argentinosaurus (1993, with R. Coria), Augustia (1998), Carnotaurus (1985), Guaibasaurus (with Ferigolo, 1998), Lapparentosaurus (1986), Ligabueino (1996), Mussaurus (with M. Vince1979), the group Neoceratosauria (1990-1991), the family Noasauridae and Noasaurus (with J.E. Powell, 1980), Patogosaurus (1979), Piatnitzkysaurus (1979), Rayososaurus (1996), Riojasaurus (1969), Riojasuchus (1969), Saltasaurus (with J.E. Powell, 1980), Trialestes (1982), Velocisaurus (1991), Venaticosuchus (1971), and Volkheimeria (1979).

BONE Bone is moslty composed of hard calcium phosphate plus a slightly flexible collagen matrix.

BONEBEDS Bonebeds are large deposits of fossil bones found together, mostly of the same species. A bonebed usually indicates that the fossilized animal lived in groups.

BONE CABIN QUARRY The Bone Cabin Quarry is the name given to a fossil field in Wyoming, USA, where an amazing amount of Jurassic period dinosaur fossils were found in 1898. This fossil bed was named the Bone Cabin Quarry because a small cabin had inadverdently been built out of fossilized bones! The Bone Cabin Quarry was found by Barnum Brown (who was a graduate student at the University of Kansas at the time) and H. Menke. The crew that excavated the fossils included Walter Granger, William D. Matthew, Peter Kaisen, Jacob Wortman, Al Thomson, and F. B. Loomis. Some of the dinosaurs found at the Bone Cabin Quarry include Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Brontosaurus (now called Apatosaurus), and . Recently, Clifford Miles and his associates at the American Museum of History, re-opened the AMH fossil collection of the Bone Cabin Quarry, using modern techniques and knowledge to describe the fossils, including a new genus, Gargoyleosaurus.

BONE-HEADED DINOSAURS Bone-headed dinosaurs are the pachycephalosaurs (meaning "thick head lizards"). They were plant-eating, thick-headed, short-armed, bipedal ornithischian dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous period. Pachycephalosaurus and Stegoceras were pachycephalosaurs.

BONES Bones are made of hard minerals like calcium. They fossilize well.

BOREOGOMPHODON Boreogomphodon was a common tetrapod that lived during the Triassic period. It was an herbivorous gomphodont cynodont, a relatively advanced synapsid that led to the true mammals. This amniote was not a dinosaur. Fossils have been found in Virginia, USA.

BOROGOVIA (pronounced bor-oh-GOH-vee-a ) Borogovia (named for the borogoves, creatures in Lewis Carroll "Jabberwocky" poem in "Through the Looking Glass" - "All mimsy were the borogoves..." ) was a troödontid theropod dinosaur about 6.5 feet (2 m) long, weighing roughly 13 kg. It was a bipedal, meat-eater known only from partial leg fossils. It lived in what is now Mongolia during the late Cretaceous period, about 80-70 million years ago. It was described by paleontologist Osmolska in 1987.

BOSS A boss is a horn or bone stump on the snout of some animals. Ceratopsians, like Styracosaurus had a boss.

BOTHRIOSPONDYLUS (pronounced BOTH-ree-o-SPON-di-lus) Bothriospondylus (meaning "trench vertebra") was a brachiosaurid sauropod dinosaur about 65 feet (20 m) long, weighing roughly 17322 kg. It was a long-necked, quadrupedal, plant-eater with openings in its vertebrae. It lived in what is now England and Madagascar during the late Jurassic period, about 170-156 million years ago. It was described by Sir Richard Owen in 1875.

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