PhD student names new UK dinosaur kept in museum 25 years

Ricardo Sacamoto, a PhD student at London’s Natural History Museum and the University of São Paulo, has named a new dinosaur, Paludohadros proudlovii, from fossils dug out of a Surrey brickworks quarry in 2001 and kept in the museum’s collections for more than 25 years. The Natural History Museum announced the new species and genus on 27 October 2026.

The study describing it was published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. Paludohadros was an iguanodontian, part of the group of plant-eating dinosaurs known for their spiked thumbs. It lived about 125 million years ago , in the Early Cretaceous period.

The museum describes it as a relative of Iguanodon, and says it was found at the same site that produced Baryonyx, an iconic meat-eating dinosaur of the Cretaceous that also ate fish. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW See also Inspired by Brazilian termites, researchers develop microrobots capable of sensing their environment, exchanging signals, and acting collaboratively without relying on a central command SpaceX Prepares Starship for Orbit Completion and Steps Toward Large Cargo Orbital Transport Researchers Develop Densified Wood Structural Nails, Increasing Wall Rigidity and Paving the Way to Reduce Metal Connectors Scientists Create New Cement Type Inspired by Elephant Skin, Absorbing Water in 50 Milliseconds and Cooling Buildings by Up to 20 °C Without AC Mantellisaurus, one of the two names long given to iguanodontians found in southern England, at the Natural History Museum.

Photo: Gary Todd/Wikimedia Commons (CC0) The fossil came out of a brick and roof tile works The bones were found in 2001 at Ewhurst Works, a brick and roof tile plant run by the company wienerberger in Surrey, southern England. They were later donated to the Natural History Museum.

The paper’s title places the find in the Weald Clay Formation, at what it calls the Smokejacks Brickworks. The same clay works had already given the world one famous dinosaur, the predator Baryonyx, back in 1983. For more than two decades, the specimen waited in the museum’s care.

“More than 25 years after it was first discovered,” the museum says, it has finally been recognised as a species and a genus new to science. A dinosaur the size of a rhino Paludohadros proudlovii was a four-legged herbivore about 5 metres long , weighing around 1.5 to 2 tonnes . That is roughly the size of a rhinoceros, according to the museum.

But the animal was not fully grown. Its bones do not appear to have been fully developed, which suggests this individual was still a juvenile when it died. An adult could potentially have grown twice as large , the researchers say.

The animal described in the study is, in other words, a youngster of its species, and the grown-ups were bigger still. Its name means a creature of the swamp When Paludohadros lived, southern England was covered in muddy wetlands. That environment gave the dinosaur its name, since “palus” means swamp in Latin.

The species name, proudlovii, honours Will Proudlove. He was a former employee of Ewhurst Works who worked his way up through the ranks to become the site’s manager. Proudlove died at the age of 35, shortly before the dinosaur was excavated, leaving his wife Rachael and their two young children.

The museum’s release says the naming was done in his honour. “Will’s name and legacy will live on” “Will always had an interest in dinosaur fossils and was fascinated about what, if anything, would be uncovered each time a layer of clay was removed from the quarry,” Rachael Proudlove said.

“We were invited to go and look at it being excavated back in 2001, so it’s amazing to hear all this time later that it’s not just a new species of dinosaur, but a new genus too,” she said. “We’re absolutely overjoyed and honoured that Will’s name and legacy will live on in this dinosaur.” It is hard not to be moved by a quarry manager’s curiosity ending up written into the scientific record.

Found 100 metres from a famous predator Paludohadros was uncovered close to where Baryonyx walkeri, an iconic meat-eating dinosaur, was first found at the same works in 1983 . Both sets of fossils are now kept at the Natural History Museum. “Paludohadros was found just 100 metres away from Baryonyx,” said Professor Susannah Maidment, of the Natural History Museum and the University of Birmingham, senior author of the study.

“While Baryonyx is best known for eating fish, this dinosaur’s last meal also included a baby iguanodontian,” she said. The researchers cannot tell which species that baby belonged to. Reconstruction of Baryonyx, found in 1983 at the same Surrey works.

Photo: Ballista/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) Hunter or scavenger of young Paludohadros That opens a possibility the museum spells out. “It’s possible that Baryonyx could have been scavenging on the remains of young Paludohadros or even hunting them when it had the opportunity,” Maidment said.

The two dinosaurs lived alongside a variety of others in the same wetland landscape. The new species gives palaeontologists another piece of that Early Cretaceous community in southern England. How a 2023 study unlocked a wave of new species For a long time, iguanodontians found in southern England were treated as either Iguanodon or its smaller relative, Mantellisaurus.

That changed after museum scientists published a detailed redescription of Mantellisaurus in 2023 . The redescription made it possible to spot key differences between specimens. The result has been a flurry of newly named iguanodontians, including Brighstoneus, Comptonatus, the sail-backed Istiorachis and now Paludohadros.

“The first species I’ve ever named” For Ricardo Sacamoto, who led the research, it is a personal milestone. “Paludohadros is the first species I’ve ever named and I’m honoured to have been able to work on it,” he said. “I still remember the incredible moment when I realised that this was a new species that no one had ever identified before,” the PhD student added in the museum’s statement.

More specimens collected in the 1950s The work is not over. Palaeontologists re-examining the museum’s collections have already identified several other Paludohadros specimens among fossils first collected in the 1950s . “I’m now going to go through the Natural History Museum’s iguanodontian collections to identify what’s there as part of my PhD,” Sacamoto said.

“This could lead to the discovery of more new dinosaur species.” The museum’s announcement says this reanalysis will continue over the coming years, with the potential for more species to be discovered in fossils that have sat in the collections for a very long time. How many more new dinosaurs do you think are still waiting in museum drawers, unrecognised for decades?