Euskelosaurus

Euskelosaurus ("good leg lizard") is a sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic of South Africa and Lesotho. Fossils have only been recovered from the lower Elliot Formation in South Africa and Lesotho,^[1] and in one locality in Zimbabwe.^[2]

Euskelosaurus Temporal range: Late Triassic, 210–201.3 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
E. browni ischia
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	†Sauropodomorpha
Family:	†Plateosauridae
Genus:	†Euskelosaurus
Species:	†E. browni
Binomial name
†Euskelosaurus browni Huxley, 1866

History of discovery

In 1863, Alfred Brown recovered fossil material consisting of limb bones and vertebrae, in the lower Elliot Formation in the southeastern Free State. In 1866, Thomas Henry Huxley first described Euskelosaurus from Brown's fossil material, and named the holotype specimen Euskelosaurus brownii after Brown.^[3] Harry Seeley later described Euskelosaurus in 1894,^[4] as did Friedrich von Huene in 1902. Since then, other researchers, including Robert Broom, have mentioned Euskelosaurus in their papers,^{[5][6][7][8][9]} although later papers refer to the material under the name Plateosauravus.^[10][11][12]

Description

Euskelosaurus is considered to have been a large, robust member of the sauropodomorph clade. Estimates from the existing fossil material measure this dinosaur at about 12.2 m (40 ft) in length and 7 t (7.7 short tons) in weight.^[13] With such parameters it was the largest of the non-sauropod ("prosauropod") sauropodomorphs.^[13] Its bones are robust and it had a graviportal limb arrangement, a key character trait of basal sauropodomorphs.^[14][15][16]

Classification

While paleontologists generally consider Euskelosaurus a basal plateosaurid sauropodomorph, it has recently been considered a nomen dubium and a “waste-basket” taxon with poorly understood phylogenetic relationships, warranting further study.^[17]

References

1. Gauffre, Francois-Xavier (1993). "Biochronostratigraphy of the Lower Elliot Formation, southern Africa) and preliminary results on the Maphutseng dinosaur. Saurischia: Prosauropoda) from the same Formation of Lesotho". In Lucas, Spencer G.; Morales, Michael (eds.). The Nonmarine Triassic: Bulletin 3. pp. 147–9.
2. Cooper, M.R. (1980). "The first record of the prosauropod dinosaur Euskelosaurus from Zimbabwe". Arnoldia Zimbabwe. 9 (3): 1–17.
3. Huxley, TH (1866). "On the remains of large dinosaurian reptiles from the Stormberg mountains, South Africa". Geological Magazine. 3: 563–4. doi:10.1017/S0016756800198395. S2CID 248534963.
4. Seeley, H.G. (1894). "XLI.—On Euskelesaurus Brownii (Huxley)". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 14 (83): 317–340. doi:10.1080/00222939408677811.
5. Broom, R. (1911). "On the dinosaurs of the Stormberg, South Africa". Annals of the South African Museum. 7: 291–308.
6. Van Heerden, J. (1979). The morphology and taxonomy of Euskelosaurus (Reptilia: Saurischia: Late Triassic) from South Africa. Nasionale Museum. OCLC 10876430.^{[page needed]}
7. Welman, Johann (1999). "The basicranium of a basal prosauropod from the Euskelosaurus range zone and thoughts on the origin of dinosaurs". Journal of African Earth Sciences. 29 (1): 227–232. Bibcode:1999JAfES..29..227W. doi:10.1016/S0899-5362(99)00092-5.
8. Yates, A.M. (2004). The death of a dinosaur: dismembering Euskelosaurus. Geoscience Africa. p. 715. ISBN 978-0-620-32470-0.
9. Galton, Peter M. (1985). "Notes on the Melanorosauridae, a family of large Prosauropod Dinosaurs (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha)". Geobios. 18 (5): 671–676. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(85)80065-6.
10. Yates, A.M. (2003). A new species of the primitive dinosaur Thecodontosaurus (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha) and its implications for the systematics of early dinosaurs. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 1(1):1-42
11. Yates, A.M., and Kitching, J.W. (2003). The earliest known sauropod dinosaur and the first steps towards sauropod locomotion. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 270(1525):1753-1758.
12. Yates, A.M. (2006). Solving a dinosaurian puzzle: the identity of Aliwalia rex Galton. Historical Biology, iFirst article, 1-30.
13. Patricia Vickers Rich, Thomas Hewitt Rich, Mildred Adams Fenton, Carroll Lane (January 15, 2020). The Fossil Book: A Record of Prehistoric Life. Dover Publications. p. 444. ISBN 9780486838557. Retrieved 2022-08-25.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
14. Durand, J.F. (2001). "The oldest juvenile dinosaurs from Africa" (PDF). Journal of African Earth Sciences. 33 (3–4): 597–603. Bibcode:2001JAfES..33..597D. doi:10.1016/S0899-5362(01)00079-3.
15. McPhee, Blair Wayne (2016). The South African Mesozoic: advances in our understanding of the evolution, palaeobiogeography, and palaeoecology of sauropodomorph dinosaurs (Thesis). hdl:10539/21644.
16. McPhee, Blair W.; Choiniere, Jonah N. (2016). "A hyper-robust sauropodomorph dinosaur ilium from the Upper Triassic–Lower Jurassic Elliot Formation of South Africa: Implications for the functional diversity of basal Sauropodomorpha". Journal of African Earth Sciences. 123: 177–184. Bibcode:2016JAfES.123..177M. doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2016.08.004.
17. Krupandan, Emil Darius (2019). Unravelling the biology of the Southern African Sauropodomorph dinosaurs, Plateosauravus and the 'Maphutseng dinosaur' (PhD thesis). University of Cape Town.

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