Bone fragments found in 1985 by Morris Zdzalek and Sylvia Standing in a Sussex brickpit were first thought to be from an Iguanodon, but Dr William T. Blows examined them and in 1996 named them as a new species of Polacanthus, a family of armoured dinosaurs. (However, in 2011, researchers at London’s Natural History Museum, using a cladistic analysis – grouping according to shared characteristics – questioned this. The matter is not yet settled: see Postscript.)
In 1985, they found
In Rudgwick Brickworks’ quarry
A piece of bone. Iguanodon?
Bill Blows said, “No, I’m sorry,
“It’s Polacanthus. It was hiding
Under false pretences!
It needs a name, though . . . how about
Polacanthus rudgwickensis?
“It’s longer than old foxii,
Found on the Isle of Wight.
(I dug one out in ’79,
That’s how I know I’m right.)
“Your rudgwickensis fossil is
Cretaceous in its Age,
Or, if you want to be precise,
Barremian* in Stage.
“Polacanthuses were spiky beasts,
With a hefty sacral shield;
But a fully intact skeleton
Has yet to be revealed.”
Rudgwick Brickworks are no more;
So fossils can’t be found there.
But I wonder if Old Spiky’s mates
Lie dormant underground there . . .
Postscript:
Analysis by cladogram
Suggests this name could fall:
Perhaps Old Spiky might not be
Polacanthus, after all . . .
* Between 129.4 and 125 million years ago
(Update! See Horshamosaurus)