Teratosaurus

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Teratosaurus
Fossil range: Late Triassic
Teratosaurus suevicus
Teratosaurus suevicus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Sauropsida
Infraclass: Archosauromorpha
(unranked) Crurotarsi
Order: Rauisuchia
Family: Rauisuchidae
Genus: Teratosaurus
Von Meyer, 1861
Species
  • T. suevicus (type)
  • T. silesiacus Sulej, 2005

Teratosaurus (Gr. teras "monster" + sauros "lizard") was a genus of rauisuchian known from the Triassic Stubensandstein (Löwenstein Formation - Norian age) of Germany and from the Krasiejów (Silesia region) of Poland. The type specimen was described by Von Meyer on the basis of a left maxilla (upper jaw bone) with large teeth, which he declared to be distinct from Belodon.

Later authors, such as von Huene, Osborn, and Edwin H. Colbert, incorrectly attributed postcrania of the sauropodomorph dinosaur Efraasia to this species, and as a result it was thought to be a very primitive theropod. Following this lead, many popular books in the 20th century depicted "Teratosaurs" as the earliest sort of large bodied meat-eating dinosaur, walking on two legs and preying on the prosauropods of its day. It was thought by many to be a Triassic ancestor to the carnosaurs of the Jurassic.

In 1985 and 1986 Peter Galton and Michael Benton independently showed that Teratosaurus is actually a nondinosaurian rauisuchian, a type of large predatory archosaur which lived alongside dinosaurs during the Late Triassic.

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