Newton, after fellow geologists John Horne and Archibald Geikie informed him of several unusual specimens stored at the Elgin Museum in Scotland.

The specimens were collected several years earlier from the coarse sandstones of the nearby Cutties Hillock Quarry.

The sandstones of Cutties Hillock were deposited at the very end of the Permian Period, based on a dicynodont fauna similar to that of the Daptocephalus Assemblage Zone of South Africa.

[4][5] The tetrapod fossils of Elgin are rarely preserved as actual bone material, but instead as external molds within the sandstone.

Once the infill is prepared away, the cavities are used as molds for casts made of gutta-percha latex, which can then be removed and described as proxies for the original fossils.

[1][2] A pair of dorsal vertebrae (GSE 4791) and a slightly longer portion of backbone including the sacrum (EMS 1978/546-548) were both recovered near the skull.

[1] Later referred specimens, RMS 1956 8.1 and 8.2, collectively represent large portions of a skeleton, including many postcranial elements.

[2] ELGNM 1978.560, a small partial skeleton first interpreted as the tail of Gordonia,[1] and then as an indeterminate procolophonid,[4][5] was described as a juvenile Elginia in 2000.

It consists of IVPP V 23875, a partial skull and backbone collected from outcrops of the Naobaogou Formation near Baotou, China.

[1][2] Newton (1893) estimated that Elginia was about 90 cm (35.4 inches) long from the tip of the snout to the base of the tail, though knowledge of pareiasaurian postcrania was quite limited at the time.

[1] Spencer & Lee (2000) estimated that the adult E. mirabilis specimens could reach a total length of 1 meter (3.3 feet).

Sutures on the skull are difficult to distinguish due to the fossil’s method of preservation, but a few conclusions can be reached.

The teeth are leaf-shaped, with a long, narrow root and approximately nine large, rounded serrations on a pentagonal crown.

The upper edge of the orbit, formed by the prefrontal and postfrontal bones, is straight in E. mirabilis and smoothly vaulted in E. wuyongae.

Even in areas without prominent horns, the skull is roughly textured with small irregular bosses and rounded pits.

One median spine would have been present at the tip of the snout, though it has broken off in the fossil, leaving behind a ‘crater-like’ depression.

[3] The foramen magnum of the braincase is wide, with its lower and outer margins primarily formed by fan-shaped exoccipital bones.

The basioccipital bone forms a small portion of the foramen magnum’s lower edge, as well as the occipital condyle.

The parabasisphenoid is unusually narrow in Elginia, tapering forwards before expanding slightly at its front extent.

[1][2][3] The postcranial morphology of Elginia is fairly typical among pareiasaurs, with a robust body and short tail.

Smaller stud-like osteoderms were certainly present on the thigh and possibly other parts of the limbs, though they may have been accidentally removed during fossil preparation.

A crest-like postaxial flange runs down the entire rear edge of the femur, narrowing in the middle and projecting horizontally.

[7] Cladistic analyses have tended to nest Elginia deeper among pareiasaurs, making it more derived than the earlier giant Pareiasaurus and Scutosaurus.