Dacentrurus
| Dacentrurus | ||||||||||||
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Live reconstruction of Dacentrurus |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Jurassic ( Oxfordian to Kimmeridgian ) | ||||||||||||
| 163.5 to 152.1 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Dacentrurus | ||||||||||||
| Lucas , 1902 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Dacentrurus ("very pointed tail") was a dinosaur from the stegosauria group thatlivedin the early Upper Jurassic and whose fossils were found in several Western European countries.
features
Dacentrurus reached a length of an estimated 7 meters, but according to other sources up to 10 meters and was thus one of the largest stegosaurs. Like all representatives of this group, it was characterized by a double row of bony structures (osteoderms) along the back and the tail. However, the remains of these osteoderms are sparse, presumably they were plate-shaped on the front part of the trunk, while they were spiky above the hip and tip of the tail. However, the exact shape and arrangement of the bone plates or spines is not known. Compared to other stegosauria, the front legs were only slightly shorter than the rear legs. In the details of the construction of the vertebrae and the basin , it differed significantly from most other stegosauria. The skull of these animals is not yet known.
Discovery and naming
Dacentrurus was the first known stegosaur; it was first described as Omosaurus armatus by Richard Owen in 1875 . However, Frederic Augustus Lucas showed in his work published in 1902 that the generic name Omosaurus had been given by Joseph Leidy in 1856 for an extinct crocodile. Fossil finds have been discovered in England ( Cambridgeshire , Wiltshire and Dorset ), France and Spain, and geologically more recent remains in Portugal .
The finds come from different epochs of the Upper Jurassic and are dated to an age of 163 to 152 million years. Presumably, however, it is a collective genus of different stegosaurs, some of which are only known from individual bone finds, which could also explain the different size specifications (often Dacentrurus is described as a small stegosaur) and information about the arrangement of the bone plates.
Systematics
Dacentrurus is one of the most ancient representatives of the Stegosauridae. Phylogenetically it is - possibly together with Chungkingosaurus - as a sister taxon of the other Stegosauridae, which are summarized as Stegosaurinae.
literature
- Michael J. Benton , Patrick S. Spencer: Fossil reptiles of Great Britain (= The Geological Conservation Review Series. 10). Chapman & Hall, London et al. 1995, ISBN 0-412-62040-5 .
- David E. Fastovsky , David B. Weishampel : The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005, ISBN 0-521-81172-4 .
- 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 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , p. 223, online .
- ↑ 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 , p. 358
- ↑ Palaeos.com
- ^ The Paleobiology Database
- ^ The Paleobiology Database
- ^ The Paleobiology Database
