The osteology of Neovenator salerii (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Wealden Group (Barremian) of the Isle of Wight

Allosauroids were a widespread theropod superfamily, but the best-known representatives are Allosaurus itself (Gilmore, 1920; Madsen, 1976) from North America and Sinraptor (Currie and Zhao, 1993) from China. A number of more fragmentary genera are also included in this clade from the Jurassic around the world. This monograph is a description of the Early Cretaceous allosauroid Neovenator salerii, a recently announced large theropod from the Wealden of England (Hutt, et al., 1996; Naish, et al., 2001). This theropod merits attention as it is the most completely known large theropod from the Early Cretaceous of Europe, and it also extends the temporal range of the allosauroids from the Jurassic. The organization of the monograph clearly follows previous descriptions of Allosaurus (Madsen, 1976) and Ceratosaurus (Madsen and Welles, 2000). The authors present a detailed description of the available material, along with extensive comparisons of other large basal theropods including Ceratosaurus (Madsen and Welles, 2000), Allosaurus (Madsen, 1976), Sinraptor (Currie and Zhao, 1993), Torvosaurus (Britt, 1991), and Acrocanthosaurus (Harris, 1998; Currie and Carpenter, 2000), among others. One oversight was the citation of Colbert, 1989, in the text but not in the References section in the mention of Coelophysis as an outgroup taxon. Much of the text is devoted to describing the material at hand, without making a priori assessments as to their phylogenetic utility, which in my opinion, can be useful in relating any future material. Proposed derived characters are noted and extensively discussed. Intraspecific variability is taken into account as much as possible and the observed pathologies described. Without the phylogenetic analysis of the allosauroids (Brusatte and Sereno, 2008), however, the characters are difficult to critique because there is little comparison with more derived theropods. In the practical sense of identifying or supporting hypothesized trends in theropod evolution, such comparisons would have been useful to include. Although the locality information is probably reasonably good, I am not sure that the presented geological column is terribly informative. It portrays the relative position of the Wessex and Vectis formations, and the position of the Neovenator bonebed, but little more. However, the photographs and accompanying text imply that more petrologic and facies information could have been presented in the column. The available fossil material is extensively illustrated with photographs and line drawings. The abbreviations associated with the structures are located within the captions, which is convenient, saving constantly looking at lists of abbreviations in other parts of the text. Unfortunately, the photographs are on a black background, making them dark because they lack sufficient contrast to stand out against it. As noted above, the results of a phylogenetic analysis of the Allosauroidea are presented elsewhere (Brusatte and Sereno, 2008); however, a cladogram is provided in the present monograph. I assume that it represents a consensus tree, but no information is given as to how it was obtained, nodal support, or the associated global indices. However, it is one of the few phylogenetic analyses including Neovenator. It shows Neovenator as a basal carcharodontosaurid, a status that was also supported in previous analyses by Rauhut (2003) and Holtz et al. (2004) Generally, this discussion of Neovenator updates a poorly known taxon from the Early Cretaceous, an important time period from which relatively little fossil material is currently known. Additionally, it provides extensive anatomical and comparative information for any future research program concerned with basal theropods. However, at £120 or roughly $200, it is somewhat expensive.