Datousaurus
| Datousaurus | ||||||||||||
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Neck and skull, skeleton reconstruction of Dotousaurus , in the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Middle Jurassic ( Bathonian to Callovian ) | ||||||||||||
| 168.3 to 163.5 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Datousaurus | ||||||||||||
| Dong & Tang, 1984 |
Datousaurus ("lizard with a big head") was a sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic ( Bathonium to Callovium ). Its fossil remains,consisting of two partially preserved skeletons and the jawbone,were discovered in the lower Shaximiao Formation in Sichuan ( China ) and named in 1984 by the paleontologists Dong and Tang. The only species is Datousaurus bashanensis . In 2000, a few more parts of the pine were also described.
description
Datousaurus was never (derived by apomorphic ) features described, but only by the discovered nearby and also from the law derived omeisaurus and Shunosaurus delimited. In contrast to the former, it has only 13 cervical and four sacral vertebrae . The cervical vertebrae have well developed pleurocoels (cavities on the front). It differs from Shunosaurus in the smaller number of teeth, which in Datousaurus have strong, spade-shaped crowns.
Systematics
Datousaurus is considered a primitive sauropod and is systematically at the base of the sauropod pedigree without being assigned to a family.
literature
- Paul Upchurch , Paul M. Barrett , Peter Dodson : Sauropoda. In: 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 , pp. 259-324.
Individual evidence
- ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 175-176, online .