Claosaurus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Claosaurus
Claosaurus in the Peabody Museum, Yale University

Claosaurus in the Peabody Museum, Yale University

Temporal occurrence
Upper Cretaceous ( Campanium )
83.6 to 72 million years
Locations
Systematics
Pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia)
Cerapoda
Ornithopoda
Iguanodontia
Hadrosaurs (Hadrosauridae)
Claosaurus
Scientific name
Claosaurus
Marsh , 1890
Art
  • Claosaurus agilis

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

Artistic reconstruction : The carcass of a Claosaurus drifts in the Western Interior Seaway in what is now Kansas. A Cretoxyrhina and two Squalicorax circle the carrion .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dougal Dixon : The World Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs & Prehistoric Creatures. Lorenz, London 2007, ISBN 978-0-7548-1730-7 , p. 343.
  2. ↑ a b after Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 556.
  3. ↑ a b c Claosaurus ( Memento from June 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), data sheet on Dinoruss.org
  4. ↑ according to Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 559.
  5. ↑ according to Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 122.
  6. ^ 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 .
  7. ^ 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 .
  8. ↑ according to Weishampel et al. 1992; P. 555.

Web links

Commons : Claosaurus  - collection of images, videos and audio files