Laosaurus

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iLaosaurus
Fossil range: Early Cretaceous

Extinct (fossil)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Ornithopoda
Family:	Hypsilophodontidae
Genus:	Laosaurus

Binomial name

Laosaurus celer
Marsh, 1878

Laosaurus is the name given to a genus of hypsilophodont dinosaur. The type species is Laosaurus celer, first described by O.C. Marsh in 1878 from remains from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming. The validity of this genus, however, is doubtful because it is based on fragmentary fossils. A second species, Laosaurus minimus, from the late Cretaceous of Alberta, is also considered dubious. It is believed that both species were hypsilophodonts, basal ornithopods.

1 History and Taxonomy
2 Paleobiology
3 References
4 External Links

[edit] History and Taxonomy

Marsh (1878a) named his new genus from vertebrae (YPM 1874) found by Samuel Williston at Como Bluff, Wyoming, from rocks of the Upper Jurassic Oxfordian-Tithonian Morrison Formation. The type material includes nine partial and two complete caudal vertebrae centra, which he concluded came from a "fox-sized" animal. In the same year, he named two other species:

L. gracilis (Marsh, 1878a), originally based on a dorsal (lumbar in humans) centrum, a caudal centrum, and part of an ulna (review by Galton [1983] finds the type to now consist of thirteen dosal and eight caudal centra, and portions of both hindlimbs);
and L. altus (Marsh, 1878b), originally based on a pelvis, hindlimb, and tooth (YPM 1876).

He returned to the genus in 1894, when additional remains convinced him that L. altus deserved its own genus (Dryosaurus), and that there was another species present: L. consors, based on YPM 1882, a partial skeleton also from Como Bluff. In 1895, he coined the family Laosauridae for his genus, but this was eventually considered synonymous with Hypsilophodontidae.

Charles Gilmore (1909) referred a juvenile femur (USNM 5808) and (1925) a partial skeleton (CM 11340) to L. gracilis, based on size, but Galton (1983) referred the femur to Othnielia and the skeleton to Dryosaurus. Gilmore also described the fifth and final species, L. minimus (species name for its small size), based on NMC 9438, a partial left hindlimb and vertebral bits from the Oldman Formation (upper Cretaceous, late Campanian) of Alberta, Canada. At the time, though, the discovery locality was thought to be in the Lower Cretaceous Blairmore Formation, which may partially explain why Gilmore chose to assign the remains to the late Jurassic genus Laosaurus (Russell, 1949). Loris Russell (1949) pointed out the new geological information and disputed the generic assignment, recommending that it be referred to as "Laosaurus" minimus. He found it to be most like Hypsilophodon, from the Lower Cretaceous Wealden.

The next major publications which mentioned Laosaurus prominently were Galton, 1977 (in which he assigned L. consors and L. gracilis to his new taxon Othnielia rex), and Galton, 1983 (in which he redescribed most of the material and reassigned it, as seen above). Galton (1983) is also one of the sources for the "Troodon as carnivorous ornithopod" hypothesis of the early 1980s, because it assigns L. minimus to Troodon based on unpublished evidence. This would tie in with the Orodromeus\Troodon egg confusion of a few years later, which was eventually settled as Troodon individuals eating Orodromeus individuals at their nesting site (hypsilophodont and troodontid embryoes are not that dissimilar). L. celer was assessed as dubious, a status it has kept through the last major revisions (Norman et al., 2004).

Two further developments have occured. First, L. minimus is seen as a possible second species or specimen of Orodromeus (Sues and Norman, 1990), although the remains are too meagre to be certain. Second, Galton, in a 2006 review, declared Othnielia rex to be based on undiagnostic remains, and shifted diagnostic referred remains to new taxon Othnielosaurus consors, taking L. consors for its type remains.

Summary:

L. celer (type species) = dubious "hypsilophodont"
L. altus = Dryosaurus altus
L. consors = Othnielosaurus consors
L. gracilis = unknown (gracilis predates consors, which would require a name change if referred to Othnielosaurus), probably a dubious "hypsilophodont"
L. minimus = dubious "hypsilophodont", possibly the same as Orodromeus

[edit] Paleobiology

Too little of it is known to make any detailed assessments, but it was probably a small, herbivorous bipedal cursor.

[edit] References

Galton, P.M. 1977. The ornithopod dinosaur Dryosaurus and a Laurasia-Gondwanaland connection in the Upper Jurassic. Nature 268: 230-232.
Galton, P.M. 1983. The cranial anatomy of Dryosaurus, a hypsilophodontid dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic of North America and East Africa, with a review of hypsilophodontids from the Upper Jurassic of North America. Geologica et Palaeontologica 17: 207-243.
Galton, P.M. 2006. Teeth of ornithischian dinosaurs (mostly Ornithopoda) from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of the western United States, in: K. Carpenter (ed.), Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press: Bloomington and Indianapolis, pp. 17-47.
Gilmore, C.W. 1909. A new rhynchocephalian reptile from the Jurassic of Wyoming, with notes on the fauna of "Quarry 9." Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum 37: 35-42.
Gilmore, C.W. 1924. A new species of Laosaurus, an ornithischian dinosaur from the Cretaceus of Alberta. Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, section 4, series 3 18:1-6.
Gilmore, C.W. 1925. Osteology of ornithopodous dinosaurs from the Dinosaur National Monument, Utah. Memoir of the Carnegie Museum 10: 385-409.
Marsh, O.C. 1878a. Notice of new dinosaurian reptiles. American Journal of Science and Arts 15:241-244.
Marsh, O.C. 1878b. Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part I. American Journal of Science and Arts 16:411-416.
Marsh, O.C. 1894. The typical Ornithopoda of the American Jurassic. American Journal of Science (Series 3) 48: 85-90.
Marsh, O.C. 1895. On the affinities and classification of the dinosaurian reptiles. American Journal of Science 50(300):483-498.
Norman, D.B., Sues, H.-D., Witmer, L.M., and Coria, R.A. 2004. Basal Ornithopoda, in: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., (eds), The Dinosauria (second edition). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 392-412.
Russell, L.S. 1949. The relationships of the Alberta Cretaceous dinosaur "Laosaurus" minimus Gilmore. Journal of Paleontology 23(5):518-520.
Sues, H.D., and Norman, D.B. 1990. Hypsilophodontidae, Tenontosaurus, and Dryosauridae, in: Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., (eds), The Dinosauria. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 498-509.
White, T.E. 1973. Catalogue of the genera of dinosaurs. Annals of Carnegie Museum 44: 117-155.