Claosaurus
Claosaurus | ||||||||||||
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Claosaurus in the Peabody Museum, Yale University |
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Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
Upper Cretaceous ( Campanium ) | ||||||||||||
83.6 to 72 million years | ||||||||||||
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Claosaurus | ||||||||||||
Marsh , 1890 | ||||||||||||
Art | ||||||||||||
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Claosaurus ( Greek "broken lizard") is a genus of hadrosaurs (Hadrosauridae) from the Campanium ( Upper Cretaceous ) of the USA . Only the type species C. agilis is scientifically described .
description
Claosaurus was a relatively small hadrosaur with a body length of about 3.7 meters. The body was slim, the legs long. The toes and teeth hardly differ from original hadrosaurs such as Telmatosaurus , Gilmoreosaurus and the Iguanodontia .
The fossil finds of Claosaurus are so far limited to a single connected skeleton with associated individual skull bones that were found in the Niobrara Limestone from the Campanium (Upper Cretaceous) in Kansas (USA), near the Smoky Hill River .
Paleobiology
No information is available about the way of life of Claosaurus . Unlike most other hadrosaurs, the skeleton of Claosaurus was found in marine deposits, so it can be assumed that it lived near the sea. In addition to Claosaurus , fossils of the ankylosaur genera Nodosaurus and Niobrarasaurus (described as Hierosaurus ) were found in the Niobrara limestone .
Systematics
Claosaurus was first described by Othniel Charles Marsh as Hadrosaurus agilis , and in 1890 he transferred it to its own genus Claosaurus due to new fossil parts . It probably represents an early hadrosaur from the family of Gilmoreosaurus , however, as with other genera ( Tanius , Secernosaurus ), a more precise assignment within the group is currently not available due to the sparse material.
Within the genus, only the type species Claosaurus agilis is considered valid while the species described as C. affinis is a nomen dubium from Edmontosaurus regalis and C. annectens is considered a synonym for Edmontosaurus annectens .
literature
- David B. Weishampel , Peter Dodson , Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria . 1st paperback printing. University of California Press, Berkeley CA 1992, ISBN 0-520-06727-4 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Dougal Dixon : The World Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures. Lorenz, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7548-1730-7 , p. 343.
- ↑ a b after Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 556.
- ↑ a b c Claosaurus ( Memento from June 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), data sheet on Dinoruss.org
- ↑ according to Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 559.
- ↑ according to Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 122.
- ^ Othniel C. Marsh : Notice of a new species of Hadrosaurus. In: American Journal of Science and Arts. Series 3, Bd. 3 = Bd. 103, No. 16, 1872, ISSN 0002-9599 , p. 301, digitized .
- ^ Othniel C. Marsh: Additional characters of the Ceratopsidæ, with notice of new Cretaceous dinosaurs. In: American Journal of Science. Series 3, Vol. 39 = Vol. 139, No. 233, Article 52, 1890, pp. 418-426, with Plates v – vii, digitized .
- ↑ according to Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 555.