Plateosaurus

Plateosaurus
Temporal range: Upper Triassic
214–204 mya
Mounted skeleton of Plateosaurus, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Class:
Sauropsida
Superorder:
Dinosauria
Order:
Saurischia
Suborder:
Sauropodomorpha
Infraorder:
Prosauropoda
Family:
Plateosauridae
Genus:
Plateosaurus

Meyer, 1837

Plateosaurus is a prosauropod dinosaur genus. They lived during the Upper Triassic period, around 214 to 294 million years ago in what is now Europe.

They were very common in their day. Over 100 skeletons have been found, some of them nearly complete. Many fossils have come from Swabia, Germany.

Plateosaurus was the first long-necked plant eater in the Triassic. An adult Plateosaurus could weigh up to 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and grow 27 feet (8.2 m) long. They had plump plant-crushing teeth, powerful hind limbs, short but muscular arms and grasping hands with large claws on three fingers. They probably used their sharp thumb claws to defend themselves against predators.

The explanation of the large number of skeletons is that the areas were probably mud-traps.

References

  1. ↑ Weishampel D.B. et al 2004. In Weishampel D.B.; Dodson P. & Osmólska H. (eds.), The Dinosauria. 2 ed, Berkeley: University of California Press, p. 524. ISBN 978-0-520-25408-4
  2. ↑ Barrett, Paul M. 2000. Prosauropod dinosaurs and iguanas: speculations on the diets of extinct reptiles. In Sues H-D. (ed) Evolution of herbivory in Terrestrial vertebrates: perspectives from the fossil record. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 42–78. ISBN 978-0-521-59449-3
  3. ↑ Fraas, Eberhard (1913). "Die neuesten Dinosaurierfunde in der schwäbischen Trias" [The latest dinosaur finds in the Swabian Triassic]. Naturwissenschaften (in German). 1 (45): 1097–1100. Bibcode:1913NW......1.1097F. doi:10.1007/BF01493265. S2CID 33390136. [permanent dead link]