New species of dinosaur with extremely big nose found by retired doctor on his pandemic project

A PhD student who spent years sifting through boxes of ancient bones discovered a new dinosaur species with a distinctive “bulbous” nasal bone during COVID-19 lockdowns. 

Jeremy Lockwood made the discovery from a box sitting in storage since 1978 while cataloging every iguanodon tendon discovered on the Isle of Wight from the collections at London’s Natural History Museum and the Dinosaur Isle Museum on the Isle of Wight. 

“For over 100 years, we’d only seen two types of dinosaur on the Isle of Wight – the plant-eating Iguanodon bernissartensis and Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis,” the former general practitioner said. “I was convinced that subtle differences between bones would reveal a new species, so I set out to measure, photograph and study the anatomy of each bone.”

“The number of teeth was a sign,” he added. “Mantellisaurus has 23 or 24, but this has 28. It also had a bulbous nose, whereas the other species have very straight noses. Altogether, these and other small differences made it very obviously a new species.”

“This discovery made it one of the happiest days of lockdown,” said Lockwood, who works with David Martill from the University of Portsmouth, and Susannah Maidment, from the Natural History Museum. 

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Lockwood named the specimen, which measures more than 26 feet in length and nearly 2,000 pounds, Brighstoneus simmondsi for a study published in Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

The specimen was named after the village of Brighstone, which is reportedly close to the excavation site and for Keith Simmonds, a collector  involved in the excavation. 

“If you want to discover a new dinosaur go into the basement of a museum rather than the field,” Lockwood said. 

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