Struthiosaurus
Name:
Struthiosaurus
(Ostrich lizard).
Phonetic: Stru-fe-o-sore-us.
Named By: Emanuel Bunzel - 1871.
Synonyms: Crataeomus, Danubiosaurus,
Leipsanosaurus, Pleuropeltis, Rhodanosaurus, Hoplosaurus.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Nodosauridae, Struthiosaurinae.
Species: S. austriacus
(type), S. languedocensis, S. transylvanicus.
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: About 2.2 meters long.
Known locations: Austria - Coal-Bearing Complex
Formation, Gr�nbach Formation. France. Romania - S�npetru
Formation, Sard Formation, Sebes Formation. Spain - Sierra
Perenchiza Formation, Vitoria Formation.
Time period: Campanian to Maastrichtian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Numerous individuals.
Struthiosaurus
seems to have been fairly common across Europe during the Late
Cretaceous, a time when much of continental Europe was more like an
island chain. Originally based upon fragmentary Austrian material,
many genera named by Harry Govier Seeley late in the nineteenth
century have now been synonymised with Struthiosaurus.
This combined
with multiple fossil discoveries from other countries such as Romania
have seen the Struthiosaurus genus expanded to
include three species
and be known by fossil material from over a dozen individuals.
Struthiosaurus
was a very small nodosaur
with fossils seemingly coming from
individuals from about two meters, to two meters, twenty
centimetres in length. This is likely a reflection of Struthiosaurus
living on islands which had reduced food availability. By growing
smaller, Struthiosaurus would have been much less
likely to exhaust
the limited food sources, and so this could be chalked up as a case
of insular dwarfism. Still, Struthiosaurus
retained their armour
skin, probably as a result of the continued presence of predatory
dinosaurs, possibly dromaeosaurid
theropods.
Struthiosaurus
should not be confused with Struthiomimus,
an ornithomimid
dinosaur
that was living in North America at a similar time that Struthiosaurus
was living in Europe.
Further reading
- Notice of a fragment of a reptilian skull from the Upper Cretaceous
of Gr�nbach. Quarterly Review of the Geological Society of London
26:394. - Emanuel Bunzel - 1871.
- The reptile fauna of the Gosau Formation preserved in the
Geological Museum of the University of Vienna - Quarterly Journal
of the Geological Society of London 37(148): 620-707. -
Harry Govier Seeley - 1881.
- Leipsanosaurus n. gen. ein neuer thyreophore aus der Gosau.
-F�ldtani K�zl�ny 48: 324-328. - Franz Nopsca - 1918.
- A new species of Struthiosaurus (Dinosauria:
Ankylosauria)
from the Upper Cretaceous of Villeveyrac (southern France). -
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23(1): 156-165. - G.
Garcia & X. Pereda-Suberbiola - 2003.
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