Timeline of stegosaur research
This timeline of stegosaur research is a chronological listing of events in the history of paleontology focused on the stegosaurs, the iconic plate-backed, spike-tailed herbivorous eurypod dinosaurs that predominated during the Jurassic period. The first scientifically documented stegosaur remains were recovered from Early Cretaceous strata in England during the mid-. However, they would not be recognized as a distinct group of dinosaurs until Othniel Charles Marsh described the new genus and species "Stegosaurus armatus" in 1877, which he regarded as the founding member of the Stegosauria. This new taxon originally included all armored dinosaurs . It was not until 1927 that Alfred Sherwood Romer implemented the modern use of the name Stegosauria as specifically pertaining to the plate-backed and spike-tailed dinosaurs. From the time of their earliest description, the chief mystery surrounding stegosaurs was the function of their distinctive back plates. Marsh originally interpreted them as being plates of armor that would protect against predators. In 1910, Richard Swann Lull would agree with this hypothesis. Charles Whitney Gilmore disagreed in 1914 and argued that the only protection a stegosaur could gain from its plates was to appear intimidatingly larger to potential predators. Nearly  forty years later, Davitashvili argued that the plates were too fragile to be used for defense and instead used to attract mates and signal the stegosaur's rank in a social hierarchy. In the late , James O. Farlow and others would propose that the thin, blood vessel-rich plates helped absorb or lose body heat, depending on the animal's own physiological requirements. This hypothesis was put forth in a broader context of scientists considering the possibility that dinosaurs may have maintained body temperatures and activity levels similar to those of modern birds and mammals, in which case the plates  may have served primarily to shed heat rather than gain it. In the late Buffrenil and others revived the idea that stegosaur plates were display structures, an interpretation that would continue to find favor from researchers like Main and colleagues into the . 19th century. 1840s. 1841 1870s. 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880s. 1880 1881 1884 1887 1890s. 1891 1893 20th century. 1900s. 1901 1902 1905 1910s. 1910 1911 1912 1914 1915 1916 1920s. 1924 1927 1929 1940s. 1944 1950s. 1951 1957 1960s. 1961 1963 1966 1970s. 1973 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980s. 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985  1986 1987 1987 1987 1990s. 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1996 1997 1998 1999 21st century. 2000s. 2000 2001 2004 2007 2008 2009 2010s. 2015 2016 2018 2019 2020s. 2020