Cetiosaurus
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Cetiosaurus (SEET-ee-oh-sawr-us) meaning 'whale lizard', from the Greek cetus/κητος meaning 'sea monster' (later, 'whale') and saurus/σαυρος meaning 'lizard', was a sauropod dinosaur from the Mid to Late Jurassic Period (181-169 million years ago) in what are now Europe and Africa. It is estimated to have been about 53 feet (15-16 m) long and to have weighed roughly 24800 kg. It was so named because its discoverer, Sir Richard Owen supposed it was a marine creature, initially an extremely large crocodile.
It was a primitive, quadrupedal, long-necked, small-headed herbivore, with a shorter tail than most sauropods.
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[edit] Discovery and Species
Cetiosaurus was the first sauropod to be discovered. Fossilised remains have been found in England and Morocco. Remains consisting of a vertebrae, rib and arm bone had been discovered on the Isle of Wight and named by English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist Sir Richard Owen, in 1841, the year before he coined the term Dinosauria. More limb bones were found in the late 1840s and a fairly complete skeleton in 1868. Owen thought it had crocodilian features. Ironically, Cetiosaurus's true nature was not realised until Thomas Huxley named it as a dinosaur in 1869.[1]
Cetiosaurus oxoniensis, from the Middle Jurassic (Bajocian) of Oxfordshire and Rutland,[2] also in England, is better known than the type species C. medius and has been proposed by Upchurch to be the new type.[3] They report the material of C. medius is insufficient to define Cetiosaurus and is hence a nomen dubium.
Cetiosaurus Species
- C. medius (type)
- C. oxoniensis Phillips, 1871
- C. mogrebiensis Lapparent, 1955
[edit] Classification
The closest relatives of Cetiosaurus appear to be Barapasaurus and the South American Patagosaurus. Together they comprise the Cetiosauridae, which was previously a large ill-defined family of primitve sauropods.
[edit] Paleobiology
It shared its time period with, and was possibly prey to, Megalosaurus and Eustreptospondylus. Cetiosaurus's environment was floodplain and open woodland.
[edit] Images
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[edit] References
- Fastovsky DE, Weishampel DB (2005). "Sauropodomorpha:The Big, The Bizarre & The Majestic", in Fastovsky DE, Weishampel DB: The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs (2nd Edition). Cambridge University Press, 229–264. ISBN 0-521-81172-4.
- ^ Debus AA (1994). "Mysterious Giants:Historical Sauropods". Dinosaur Report (Spring): 8–9.
- ^ Upchurch P & Martin J (2002). "The Rutland Cetiosaurus: the anatomy and relationships of a Middle Jurassic British sauropod dinosaur.". Palaeontology 45 (6): 1049–1074.
- ^ Upchurch P & Martin J (2003). "The Anatomy and Taxonomy of Cetiosaurus (Saurischia, Sauropoda) from the Middle Jurassic of England". Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 23 (1): 208–231.
