\n<\/p>\n
Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur with an \u201ceye-catching sail\u201d along its back and tail that may have been used to attract mates.<\/p>\n
The iguanodontian dinosaur, whose fossils were found on the Isle of Wight, was identified by Dr Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth and the Natural History Museum.<\/p>\n
The retired GP has named it Istiorachis <\/em>macarthurae<\/em>, a mix of \u201csail spine\u201d and a reference to Ellen MacArthur, who set a world record for the fastest solo non-stop sailing voyage around the world in 2005.<\/p>\n <\/span>The iguanodontian dinosaur was identified by Dr Jeremy Lockwood, above, of the University of Portsmouth and the Natural History Museum.<\/span> Photograph: James Brown\/PA<\/p>\n Prior to Lockwood\u2019s analysis, the fossils, which date back 125m years, were assumed to have belonged to one of the two known dinosaur species from the Isle of Wight.<\/p>\n But after comparing the preserved bones with a database of similar dinosaur back bones, it became clear the fossil was unique. Lockwood said: \u201cWhile the skeleton wasn\u2019t as complete as some of the others that have been found, no one had really taken a close look at these bones before \u2026 unlike the others, this one had particularly long neural spines, which was very unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>The Istiorachis macarthurae<\/em> is named after Ellen MacArthur, who set a world record for the fastest solo non-stop sailing voyage around the world in 2005.<\/span> Photograph: Adam Davy\/PA<\/p>\n He said the animal would probably have had a pronounced sail-like structure along its back. \u201cEvolution sometimes seems to favour the extravagant over the practical. While the exact purpose of such features has long been debated \u2013 with theories ranging from body heat regulation to fat storage \u2013 researchers believe that the most likely explanation in this case is visual signalling, possibly as part of a sexual display to attract a mate.<\/p>\n \u201cIn modern reptiles, sail structures often show up more prominently in males, suggesting that these attributes evolved to impress mates or intimidate rivals. We think Istiorachis<\/em> may have been doing much the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Prof Susannah Maidment, of the Natural History Museum, said: \u201cJeremy\u2019s careful study of fossils that have been in museum collections for several years has brought to life the iguandontian dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight.<\/p>\n \u201cHis work highlights the importance of collections like those at Dinosaur Isle, where fossil specimens are preserved in perpetuity and can be studied and revised in the light of new data and new ideas about evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was amended on 22 August 2025. Owing to an error provided in supplied information, an earlier version misspelled Istiorachis macarthurae<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur with an \u201ceye-catching sail\u201d along its back and tail that may have been used to attract mates. The iguanodontian dinosaur, whose fossils were found on the Isle of Wight, was identified by Dr Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth and the Natural History<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[10389,10393,5178,10390,10391,2899,5004,10392],"class_list":{"0":"post-17263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-dinosaur","9":"tag-dinosaurs","10":"tag-discovered","11":"tag-eyecatching","12":"tag-isle","13":"tag-sail","14":"tag-species","15":"tag-wight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}