Shuvosaurus
Name:
Shuvosaurus
(Shuvo’s lizard).
Phonetic: Shu-vo-sore-us.
Named By: Sankar Chatterjee - 1993.
Synonyms: Chatterjeea elegans.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Archosauria, Crurotarsi, Pseudosuchia, Suchia, Rauisuchia,
Paracrocodylomorpha, Poposauroidea, Shuvosauridae.
Species: S. inexpectatus
(type).
Diet: Carnivore?
Size: Up to 2 meters long.
Known locations: USA, Arizona, New Mexico and
Texas.
Time period: Norian of the Triassic.
Fossil representation: Remains of several
individuals, though usually incomplete.
Shuvosaurus
was described from the discovery of a skull that had no teeth but a
well-developed beak-like anterior portion. Because of this,
Shuvosaurus was at the time considered to possibly
be an ancient
ancestor to the ornithomimosaurs,
a group of dinosaurs that at the
time of writing are only known from Cretaceous era fossil deposits.
Later study, particularly the description of the genus Effigia
in
2006, has now yielded the conclusion that Shuvosaurus
is not
actually a dinosaur, but a form of rauisuchian. Because the mouth
is beaked and toothless, it is difficult to establish what kind of
diet Shuvosaurus head, since a beaked mouth could
be used for either
a carnivorous or herbivorous diet, possibly even both.
Sankar
Chatterjee named Shuvosaurus after his son, who
was also the person
to discover the Shuvosaurus holotype. The species
name
‘inexpectatus' is a reflection of the unexpected nature of the
find. Another genus named by Chatterjee, Chatterjeea,
is now
considered a synonym to Shuvosaurus, and hence
material once labelled
as Chatterjeea is now referred to as Shuvosaurus.
Additionally, the
vertebrae once attributed to the Gojirasaurus
holotype, are now
regarded as belonging to Shuvosaurus.
Further reading
- An unusual toothless archosaur from the Triassic of Texas: the
world's oldest ostrich dinosaur?, Sankar Chatterjee - 1991.
- Shuvosaurus, a new theropod: an unusual
theropod dinosaur from
the Triassic of Texas, Sankar Chatterjee - 1993.
- The anatomy of Effigia okeeffeae
(Archosauria, Suchia),
theropod-like convergence, and the distribution of related taxa,
S. Nesbitt - 2007.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |
 |