The Stegosaurian Dinosaurs

Tuesday, 20 May 2025

18:00 - 19:00 (Doors open at 17:30)

This event is free but booking is required. Book your tickets here.

About the event

Stegosaurs are a group of dinosaurs characterized by the possession of two rows of plates and spines that extend from the neck to the end of the tail. They are known from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous and have been found on all continents except Australia and Antarctica, and one of the oldest known specimens is from Oxfordshire. Stegosaurs are part of a larger group of armoured dinosaurs, which also includes the ankylosaurs. They were four-legged plant-eaters and body mass estimates indicate they weighed about the same as a rhino. They were probably slow-moving, and not capable of running. They had very small teeth and do not appear to have chewed, but despite this, their bite forces indicate they could have eaten tough vegetation and small twigs. Several hypotheses have been put forward about the function of the plates of stegosaurs, but these have proven difficult to test. Different species appear to have had differently shaped plates, suggesting a role in display, and perhaps to deter predators.

About the speaker

Professor Susannah Maidment is a vertebrate palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, UK. Her work focuses on the palaeobiology of the bird-hipped ‘ornithischian’ dinosaurs, including iconic species like Stegosaurus and Iguanodon. She also studies the palaeoenvironments in which dinosaurs and other Mesozoic vertebrates are found, with field areas in Morocco and the western USA. Professor Maidment holds a degree in geological sciences from Imperial College, a PhD in vertebrate palaeontology from the University of Cambridge, and an honorary Professorship in palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham. She regularly appears in the media talking about dinosaurs, and in 2019 was one of National Geographic UK’s Women of Impact. In 2016 Professor Maidment was awarded the Palaeontological Association’s Hodson Award, and in 2017 the Geological Society’s Lyell Fund, both for notable contributions by an early career researcher.