Struthiosaurus

Struthiosaurus
	Modern reconstruction of Struthiosaurus austriacus
Temporal occurrence
	Upper Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian )
	69.9 to 66 million years
Locations
	Europe;
Systematics
	Pelvic dinosaur (Ornithischia)
	Thyreophora
	Eurypoda
	Ankylosaurs (ankylosauria)
	Nodosauridae
	Struthiosaurus
Scientific name
	Struthiosaurus
	Bunzel , 1871
species
	S. austriacus Bunzel, 1871 ; S. languedocensis Garcia & Pereda-Superbiola, 2000 ; S. transsylvanicus Nopcsa , 1915 ;

Struthiosaurus is a genus of pelvic dinosaur from the group of Ankylosauria . She livedin Europeat the end of the Upper Cretaceous .

features

Osteoderms of a Struthiosaurus austriacus , from Lower Austria in the Natural History Museum Vienna

From struthiosaurus only fragments of the skull and parts have been found so far of the postcranial skeleton. It was a very small representative of the Ankylosauria, estimates of the length of the animal vary between 2 and 4 meters. Like all Ankylosauria, it was covered by armor made of bone plates (osteoderms) and may have moved quadruped (on all fours). The top of the skull was also covered by bone plates, the small teeth were adapted to a vegetable diet.

Discovery and systematics

Scientifically outdated reconstruction of Struthiosaurus from 1915

Struthiosaurus fossil finds are among the oldest known ankylosaurs. The type species S. austriacus, found in the Gosau Group near Winzendorf-Muthmannsdorf in Lower Austria , was first described as early as 1871 . The name means "ostrich lizard" and is a sign of the scant knowledge of these animals at the time - it was initially thought to be a theropod . At the beginning of the 20th century, Franz Nopcsa discovered a second species, S. transsylvanicus, in what is now Romania . This species was larger and also differed in the structure of the cervical vertebrae and the skull of S. austriacus . In 2003, a third species, S. languedocensis , was discovered in the Hérault département (southern France) , of which only parts of the postcranial skeleton are known so far. A number of sparsely known genera or nomina dubia , Crataeomus , Danubiosaurus , Leipsanosaurus and Pleuropeltis are mostly considered synonymous with Struthiosaurus today .

The finds all come from the Upper Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian ) and are estimated to be around 69 to 66 million years old. The scanty finds make a precise systematic classification of Struthiosaurus difficult. Due to a bump-like extension of the shoulder blade , it is counted among the Nodosauridae within the Ankylosauria .

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.

Web links

Data sheet with images

Individual evidence

^ Frotzler N. (2017): A new reconstruction of Struthiosaurus austriacus Bunzel 1871 . PeerJ Preprints 5: e2758v1 doi: 10.7287 / peerj.preprints.2758v1
^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 236-237, online .

[Frotzler-1] Frotzler N. (2017): A new reconstruction of Struthiosaurus austriacus Bunzel 1871 . PeerJ Preprints 5: e2758v1 doi: 10.7287 / peerj.preprints.2758v1

[paul_10-2] Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , pp. 236-237, online .