Thecodontosaurus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| ?Thecodontosaurus Conservation status: Fossil |
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| Thecodontosaurus antiquus Morris, 1843 |
| Thecodontosaurus | |
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| Translation | socket tooth lizard |
| Type | small long-necked dinosaur |
| Length | 4 ft (1,20 m) |
| Height | 1 ft (30 cm) |
| Weight | 11 kg |
| Movement | quadruped/biped |
| Age | 210-190 million years ago |
| Diet | herbivore |
| Distribution | England and southern Africa |
Thecodontosaurus ("socket-tooth lizard") was a herbivorous dinosaur which lived during the Late Triassic period (Norian and/or Rhaetian age). Its remains are known mostly from Triassic "fissure fillings" in South England and Wales. On average, it was 4 feet (1.20 metres) long, 1 foot tall (0.3 metres), and weighed 25 pounds (11 kilograms).
Although not actually the earliest member of the group (that honour belongs to as yet unnamed sauropodomorphs from Madagascar (Flynn and Wyss 2002)), Thecodontosaurus is the most primitive well-known representative of the sauropodomorph dinosaurs. Originally it was included under the prosauropoda (Upchurch 1998) but more recently it has been suggested that Thecodontosaurus and its relatives were prior to the Prosauropod-Sauropod split (Yates & Kitching 2003). New reconstructions show that its neck is proportionally shorter than in more advanced early sauropodomorphs.
The Thecodontosaurus was a victim of World War II bombings by the Germans. The remains of this dinosaur and other material related to it were destroyed in 1940. However, more remains have been found at a number of localities, including Bristol. Some of this new material pertains to a juvenile specimen that may belong to a distinct species, Thecodontosaurus caducus Yates, 2003
[edit] References
- Flynn, John J. and Wyss, Andre R. (2002) Madagascar's Mesozoic Secrets. Scientific American 286: 54-63 February 2002.
- Upchurch, P (1998), The phylogenetic relationships of sauropod dinosaurs. Zool. J. Linnean Soc. 124: 43–103.
- Yates, A. M., (2003) A new species of the primitive dinosaur Thecodontosaurus (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha) and its implications for the systematics of early dinosaurs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology Vol. 1, no.1, pp. 1-42
- Yates, A.M. & Kitching, J. W. (2003) The earliest known sauropod dinosaur and the first steps towards sauropod locomotion. Proc. R. Soc. Lond.: B Biol Sci. 2003 Aug 22; 270(1525): 1753–8.
[edit] External links
- The Bristol Dinosaur.
- Thecodontosaurus at DinoData.
- Sauropodomorpha
