Dacentrurus

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Dacentrurus

Extinct (fossil)

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Sauropsida
Superorder:	Dinosauria
Order:	Ornithischia
Suborder:	Thyreophora
Infraorder:	Stegosauria
Family:	Stegosauridae
Genus:	Dacentrurus Lucas, 1902

Species

D. armatus

Dacentrurus ("very sharp tail"), originally known as Omosaurus, was a large stegosaur of the late Jurassic Period (154 - 150 mya). This dinosaur measured around 6 - 10 m (20 - 33 ft) in length.

1 Discovery and species
2 Footnotes
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Discovery and species

When it was described by Richard Owen in 1875 as Omosaurus armatus, it was the first stegosaur ever discovered, although the genus name had to be changed as the name Omosaurus was preoccupied.

Fossil evidence has been found in Wiltshire and Dorset (including a vertebra ascribed to D. armatus in Weymouth^[1]) in southern England, France and Spain and five more historically recent skeletons from Portugal. It had paired triangular plates down its spine, with four pairs of spikes on the end of the tail. This configuration closely resembles that of its relative, Kentrosaurus (see also: Thagomizer). For unknown reasons, many books claim that Dacentrurus was a small stegosaur, when in fact finds such as a 1.5 m pelvis (measured at the acetabula) suggest that Dacentrurus was among the largest of them.

Other claimed species of Dacentrurus include D. durobrivensis (included with Lexovisaurus durobrivensis), D. phillipsi (sometimes mistakenly included with Priodontognathus phillipsi, due to having the same species name and a confused history), and D. vetustus (included with Lexovisaurus vetustus).