Abrictosaurus

General information

LAbrictosaurus (“waked up lizard”) is a kind of Dinosaure of the family of the hétérodontosauridés of the Jurassic lower which lived in what is our day the south of the Africa. It was a Herbivore (or Omnivore) Bipède, being approximately 120 centimetres long and weighing less than 45 kilograms.

Its name means lizard waked up

Time: Jurassic inferior (- 203 M.A. with - 191 M.A.)

Size: 1,2 m length, 1 m in height, 45 kg

Habitat: South Africa

food Mode: herbivore or omnivorous

Etymology

The name abrictosaurus can result in “waked up lizard”. It is a Greek derivative of two terms S, abriktos which means “waked up” and sauros , meaning “lizard”. This name draws its origin from a disagreement between two South-African paleontologists. Richard Thulborn, which initially described the remainders of the animal which was going to be known under the name of abrictosaure, supposed that hétérodontosauridés were to pass by periods of Estivation (or Hibernation) caused by a dental cycle of replacement. James Hopson did not believe at all and proposed in it the name of “lizard waked up” in reference to its belief. Hopson “gained” possibly the debate, because the scientists do not believe any more in the estivation of hétérodontosauridés, and the name remained.

To date, only one species was named, Abrictosaurus consors . The Latin term consors means “companion” or “wife”. Thulborn believed that the cranium that it had found was that of an animal female because it did not have defenses of the others hétérodontosauridés.

The species initially was named and described by Thulborn in 1974 as being a species of Lycorhinus. Later, in 1975, Hopson define it as a kind as such following the discovery of a more complete cranium.

Taxonomy

The abrictosaure is a family member of hétérodontosauridés, the family of small ornithischiens. The bonds between this family and the other ornithischiens are not precisely known to date. Within this family, Abrictosaure is generally considé like less advanced than its similar, such Lycorhinus and Heterodontosaurus . However, if the theory of the sexual Dimorphisme of Thulborn is exact, then it is possible that the abrictosaure is in fact the female of another kind of hétérodontosauridé.

Hiring and time

The animal was found in the Formation of Elliot of the Lesotho and the the Cape Province in South Africa. This formation contains sediments of the Hettangien and Sinémurien, left Jurassic, between 200 and 190 million years. Other dinosaurs found in this formation are Syntarsus , Massospondylus and others hétérodontosauridés like Heterodontosaurus .

Remainders

All that was found animal until now summarizes with a cranium of youthful incomplete and a skeleton, found in Lesotho. Of two craniums short defenses similar are absent to canines of the upper jaws and lower of the others hétérodontosauridés.

Internal bonds

See List of the dinosaurs

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Simple: Abrictosaurus

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