Illustration
Clasmodosaurus spatula (meaning "Fragment tooth lizard"), was a genus of Sauropod from Argentina. It was first considered a sauropod, then a coelurosaur, then a carnosaur, and then finally a sauropod again. It lived somewhere around 100 and 66 million years ago.
History[]
Clasmodosaurus was named by Florentino Ameghino in 1898, but remained largely unknown for decades after its discovery. It was originally considered a sauropod, but Friedrich von Huene suggested that it could be a coelurosaur or synonymous with Loncosaurus, which he considered to be a carnosaur. Like Loncosaurus, its taxonomy remained unclear with it regarded as a theropod on the rare occasions it was mentioned. However, Jaime Powell suggested that it was a dubious genus of sauropod in 1986, an identification which has been accepted since. Like diplodocoids and titanosaurs, it had narrow tooth crowns, and it is typically regarded as a titanosaur like most Late Cretaceous sauropods.
Gallery[]
