Non-Dinosaurs

The Lucases excavated other fossils in Garden Park besides dinosaurs. The following are both Jurassic reptiles found by the Lucases. They weren't dinosaurs, but they did live with dinosaurs.

GlyptopsGraphic of a small turtle known as Glyptops plicatulus.

Glyptops plicatulus is an extinct species of freshwater turtle, and belongs to one of the very few turtle genera known from North America during the Jurassic. Fossils from this genus have been found in 6 states other than Colorado, spanning from South Dakota to Texas. Like most (but not all) turtles and tortoises alive today, Glyptops could pull its head directly back into its body. Cope originally named this turtle Compsemys plicatulus, but the species was put into the Glyptops genus by scientist Oliver Hay after he discovered that it was the same animal as Marsh’s Glyptops ornatus. Glyptops plicatulus became the type species of its genus, with its type specimen being from the Cope-Lucas Quarries.1



Reference

1Gaffney, E. S., 1979, The Jurassic Turtles of North America: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 152, no. 3, p. 91–136.

GoniopholisGraphic of skull of an ancient type of crocodile called Goniopholis.

Goniopholis lucasii was a species of extinct crocodiloform, an animal that was closely related to the ancestors of modern crocodiles. It was semi-aquatic and probably had a similar lifestyle to currently living freshwater crocodiles and alligators. Cope originally named this animal "Amphicotylus lucasii," but like Glyptops plicatus, G. lucasii was later assigned to a different genus. Goniopholis lucasii was presumably named after the Lucases, and its type locality is the Cope-Lucas Quarries.



References

Hupps, K. M., Lockley, M. G., Foster, J. R., 2006, A partial skeleton of Goniopholis from the Brush Basin Member of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic), Cactus Park, Colorado, and distributions of large neosuchians in Foster, J. R. and Lucas, S. G., eds., 2006, Paleontology and Geology of the Upper Morrison Formation: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, no. 36, p. 107-108.

Mook, C. C., 1942, Skull characters of Amphicotyles lucasii Cope: American Museum Novitates, no. 1165,  p. 5.