Hylaeosaurus
| Hylaeosaurus | ||||||||||||
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1858 drawing of the fossils embedded in the rock matrix from the Tilgate Forest |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Cretaceous ( Valanginium ) | ||||||||||||
| 139.3 to 133.9 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Hylaeosaurus | ||||||||||||
| Mantell , 1833 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Hylaeosaurus is a genus of pelvic dinosaur from the group of Ankylosauria . It is one of the now famous first dinosaurs and was first in 1833 described .
features
From Hylaeosaurus there are only scant finds. Mainly the anterior half of the skeleton including some bone plates and isolated fragments of the skull are known. This dinosaur is thought to have had stout limbs and moved on all fours ( quadrupedie ). As with all ankylosauria, its trunk was covered by numerous bone plates ( osteoderms ) that served as armor. The length of the animals was probably around four to six meters. Like all ankylosaurs, it was probably herbivorous.
Discovery and naming
Hylaeosaurus was one of the first dinosaurs to be discovered. Fossil finds from Tilgate Forest in Sussex (southern England) were first described by Gideon Mantell in 1833 . The Greek name means "forest lizard" and alludes to the place where it was found. Together with Iguanodon and Megalosaurus , Hylaeosaurus was one of those animals for which Richard Owen coined the term "Dinosauria" in 1842.
The finds are dated in the early Lower Cretaceous ( Valanginium ) to an age of 139 to 134 million years and are thus among the oldest ankylosaurs. Finds are known from England and Germany.
Systematics
The type species and only recognized species is H. armatus . Two other species are now included in the genus Polacanthus (according to some researchers, Polacanthus - of which mainly the rear half is known - is the same genus as Hylaeosaurus ). The classification in the systematics of the Ankylosauria is difficult due to the sparse finds, Vickaryous et al. (2004) list it as "Ankylosauria incertae sedis ".
literature
- Matthew K. Vickaryous, Teresa Maryańska , David B. Weishampel : Ankylosauria. 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. 363-392.
- 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 .
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 , p. 228, online ( memento of the original of July 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Sven Sachs, Jahn J. Hornung: Ankylosaur Remains from the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian) of Northwestern Germany. In: PLoS ONE . Vol. 8, No. 4, 2013, e60571, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0060571 .
