Eurypoda

Eurypoda
Live reconstruction of Dacentrurus
Temporal occurrence
Middle Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous ( Bajocian to Maastrichtian )
170.3 to 66 million years
Locations
worldwide
Systematics
Ornithodira Dinosaur (dinosauria) Pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia) Thyreophora Eurypoda
Scientific name
Eurypoda
Sereno , 1986

The Eurypoda ("broad feet") are a taxon (a systematic group) of the bird pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia), which combines the stegosauria and the ankylosauria . Together with some primitive representatives, they form the Thyreophora .

The Eurypoda were clumsy dinosaurs. In contrast to the more primitive Thyreophora, they moved exclusively quadruped (four-footed), with the hind legs being longer than the front legs. The common features of these animals included the shortened wrist and ankle bones , a shortening of the process of the iliac bone behind the acetabulum , and the loss of the fourth toe. They were characterized by bone plates (osteoderms), which in the stegosaurs took the form of a double row on the back and in the ankylosaurs an armor on the upper side of the trunk. The teeth of these animals were small and leaf-shaped, all shapes were herbivores.

The oldest finds of the Eurypoda come from the Middle Jurassic , about 170 million years ago, and Huayangosaurus is one of the oldest better-known representatives . The stegosauria had their heyday in the Upper Jurassic, but died out in the course of the Cretaceous . The ankylosauria appeared in the Upper Jurassic, but only reached their greatest wealth of forms and species in the Cretaceous period. At the end of this era, like all non-avian dinosaurs, they became extinct.

literature

• David B. Weishampel , Peter Dodson , Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria . 2nd edition. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-520-24209-2 .
• David E. Fastovsky , David B. Weishampel: The Evolution an Extinction of the Dinosaurs. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 2005, ISBN 0-521-81172-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 218-239, online .