.97" Rare Dinosaur (Hypsilophodon) Vertebra - England

Rare Dinosaur (Hypsilophodon) Vertebra - England #206522

British dinosaur material is fairly hard to acquire and there is remarkably little of it on the market. This is a nicely preserved vertebra of the ornithischian dinosaur Hypsilophodon foxii. It was collected from the Isle of Wight in England. It was prepped free of the rock it was found in and has minimal restoration where the bone was crushed during fossilization.

Hypsilophodon is an ornithischian dinosaur genus from the Early Cretaceous period of England.
Its first remains were found in 1849; the type species, Hypsilophodon foxii, was named in 1869. Abundant fossil discoveries were made on the Isle of Wight, giving a good impression of the species' anatomy. It was a small, bipedal animal with a herbivorous or possibly omnivorous diet. Hypsilophodon reached up to 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) in length, weighed about 20 kilograms (45 pounds), and was an agile runner. It had a pointed head equipped with a sharp beak used to bite off plant material, much like modern day parrots.