Lexovisaurus
| Lexovisaurus | ||||||||||||
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Lexovisaurus vertebrae and spines in the exhibition of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Middle Jurassic ( Callovium ) | ||||||||||||
| 166.1 to 163.5 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Lexovisaurus | ||||||||||||
| Hoffstetter , 1957 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Lexovisaurus is a genus of bird's pelvis dinosaur from the stegosauria group . She lived in the Middle Jurassic in Western Europe.
features
With an estimated length of 6 meters, Lexovisaurus was a medium-sized stegosaur. Along its back and tail it carried the bone plates (osteoderms) typical of this group. Only a few plates have survived; these were large, thin and shingle-shaped and were very similar to those of Stegosaurus . Their exact shape and arrangement is not known. At the tip of its tail, like other stegosaurs, it had at least a pair of long, pointed spines. There was also a sting in the shoulder area. These shoulder spines were also found in some other stegosaurs, but those of Lexovisaurus were the longest. However, there are differences in length in these spines, which may be a sign of sex dimorphism .
The limbs were very powerfully built, as with most stegosaurs, the hind legs were significantly longer than the front legs. As a result, the head - which has not been preserved - was positioned close to the ground. Lexovisaurus moved on all fours ( quadruped ) and like all stegosaurs might have been herbivores.
Discovery and naming
Remains of Lexovisaurus were found in England as early as the 19th century , making it one of the earliest known stegosaurs. At first it was called Omosaurus (together with Dacentrurus , another stegosaur from England) , but this name was already occupied by an extinct crocodile. In 1957 the name Lexovisaurus was coined, named after the Lexovians , a Celtic people who lived in northern France. The only recognized species is Lexovisaurus durobrivensis ; other described species such as L. leedsi or L. vetustus are now considered synonyms of L. durobrivensis or nomina dubia .
Finds of Lexovisaurus are known from Cambridgeshire and Dorset in England and Calvados in northern France. They are dated to the Middle Jurassic ( Callovian ), to an age of around 165 million years.
literature
- 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 .
- David E. Fastovsky , David B. Weishampel: The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 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. 221 ( online ).
