Cretaceous Dinosaurs of North Carolina 
Donald Baird and John R. Horner 
Museum of Natural History, Princeton University, 
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 
ABSTRACT. — Isolated bones of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs from the 
Black Creek Formation (Campanian) of Sampson and Bladen counties, 
accumulated over the last eleven decades, are described and interpreted 
in the light of more nearly complete material known from elsewhere. A 
medium-sized carnivorous dinosaur is comparable to the tyrannosaurids 
Dryptosaurus and Albertosaurus. One toe bone represents the ostrich-mimic 
Ormthomimus. The enigmatic Hypsibema crassicauda , originally based on a 
mixture of three suborders, is restricted to tail vertebrae and syn- 
onymized with Parrosaurus; it is probably a sauropod of huge size but un- 
certain family. Duckbill dinosaur bones are generically indeterminate 
but evidently belong to the Hadrosaurinae. “Hadrosaurus tripos ” is not a 
Cretaceous dinosaur but a Pliocene whale. Also misidentified as 
dinosaurian are remains of the gigantic crocodile Deinosuchus 
[Phobosuchus] rugosus, which probably preyed on the amphibious hadro- 
saurs. 
A revised list of the Phoebus Landing local fauna includes the 
sharklike fishes Aster ac anthus , Scapanorhynchus , Squalicorax, Ischyrhiza , and 
Brachyrhizodus; the bony fishes Paralbula and Pycnodus; the turtles Triohyx 
and Taphrosphys ; the mosasaurid sea-lizards Tylosaurus and Platecarpus; 
the crocodiles Deinosuchus and Leidyosuchus; and four dinosaurian genera. 
Homonymy of Coelosaurus Leidy, 1865, with Coelosaurus [Owen] 1854 
necessitates the transfer of C. antiquus Leidy to Ormthomimus . 
INTRODUCTION 
Our knowledge of the Cretaceous dinosaurs of North Carolina is, un- 
fortunately, derived entirely from isolated and often fragmentary bones 
that were brought to light during extremely sporadic episodes of 
collecting activity. In the antebellum period an impressive amount of 
pioneering work was done by Ebenezer Emmons, state geologist from 
1851 to 1863. Although Cretaceous reptile bones (mosasaur, crocodile 
and turtle) are illustrated in Emmons (1858), he seems not to have dis- 
covered any dinosaur material — or if he did, it was lost to science with 
the wartime destruction of the Survey collections (Stuckey 1965). 
Thus the first discovery of dinosaurs within the state must be credited 
to the versatile and energetic Washington Caruthers Kerr, an alumnus of 
Chapel Hill who had done postgraduate work under Agassiz and others 
at Harvard. Beginning his service as state geologist in 1864, in the final 
desperate months of the war, and persevering through the troubled and 
Brimleyana No. 2: 1-28. November 1979 
1 
