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State Symbols

The official state symbols represent the cultural heritage and natural treasures of each state or the entire United States

Missouri Symbols

Missouri State Dinosaur

(Hypsibema missouriensis)

Adopted in July 9, 2004.

The Hypsibema missouriensis - pronounced hip-suh-BEE-muh mi-zur-ee-EN-sis., whose name means big lizard, a 35-foot-long creature with 1,000 teeth was chosen as Missouri's official state dinosaur on July 9, 2004. The Hypsibema Missouriensis is a large, duck-billed, plant-eating sauropod.

It was adopted in July 9, 2004 as Missouri's State Dinosaur.

The Chronister Dinosaur Site near Glenallen, Mo., was discovered in 1942 when the Chronister family found bones while digging a well. Some of the bones discovered are in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Some now are in the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History.

Among them are teeth of hypsibema missouriensis, a species of duck-billed dinosaur that lived in this region 65 million years ago. The Chronister Dinosaur Site is the only location on Earth where remains of that dinosaur species have been found.

Missouri's official dino-designate would have laid its eggs in a coastal plain - and southern Missouri, 67 million years ago, may have been less than 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.

Described as a sauropod by Gilmore in 1945 as Neosaurus in the Journal of Paleontology. Later that year by Gilmore and Stewart renamed it as Parrosaurus because the name Neosaurus that Gilmore gave to this specimen was preoccupied . In 1979 this dinosaur was transferred to the family called "Hypsibema" so it became Hypsibema missouriensis. The type material consist of thirteen vertebrae from Ripley Formation (Late Cretaceous Period) in Bolinger County, Missouri. It was collected in 1942 by L. Chronister.

In the 1980's, Dr. Stinchcomb, with assistance from Dr. David Parris and Dr. Barbara Grandstaff of the New Jersey State Museum, conducted a series of test excavations. These new fossils made it possible for Dr. Parris and Dr. Grandstaff to determine that Hypsibema is not a sauropod after all, but rather a hadrosaur. Hadrosaurs are also called "duck-billed" dinosaurs because their snout superficially resembles a duck's bill.

HB 1209 — Official State Dinosaur. Names the Hypsibema missouriensis as the official state dinosaur. (signed 7/9/04)
Missouri Revised Statutes
Chapter 10
State Emblems
Section 10.095

August 28, 2005
State dinosaur.
10.095. The Hypsibema missouriensis dinosaur is hereby selected for, and shall be known as, the official dinosaur of the state of Missouri.

(L. 2004 H.B. 1209)

State Symbols

State symbols represent things that are special to a particular state.

symbol \ˈsim-bəl\
noun

Etymology:
in sense 1, from Late Latin symbolum, from Late Greek symbolon, from Greek, token, sign; in other senses from Latin symbolum token, sign, symbol, from Greek symbolon, literally, token of identity verified by comparing its other half, from symballein to throw together, compare, from syn- + ballein to throw — more at devil
Date: 15th century

1: Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.