| Dravidosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, Coniacian | |
|---|---|
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| Speculative restoration of Dravidosaurus as a stegosaur | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Family: | †Stegosauria |
| Genus: | †Dravidosaurus Yadagiri and Ayyasami, 1979 |
| Species | |
| |
Dravidosaurus is a dubious genus of stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in what is now India. Some researchses claim that it could have been a plesiosaur, it is based on highly weathered fossils. The type and the only known species is D. blanfordi.
Description[]
Dravidosaurus skull reconstruction on the basis of other stegosaurids.
Dravidosaurus lived in the Late Cretaceous period (Coniacian stage) of what is now India. It is only known from disassociated remains comprising a partial skull, a tooth, a sacrum, an ilium, an ischium, a dermal plate, and a spike. The badly weathered remains were discovered in marine deposits near Ariyalur in the state of Tamil Nadu in South India. They were in 1979 named by P.M. Yadagiri and Krishnan Ayyasami as the type species Dravidosaurus blanfordi, the specific name honouring William Thomas Blanford. The holotype partial skull is catalogued as GSI SR Pal 1, while other specimens are catalogued GSI SR Pal 2-7.[1]
Dravidosaurus as a plesiosaur.
In 1991, Sankar Chatterjee visited the site and claimed, without concrete morphological evidence, that Dravidosaurus is a plesiosaur, the species being a nomen dubium.[2] However, this claim was rejected Galton and Upchurch (2004), who noted that the skull, tooth and plate of Dravidosaurus are certainly not plesiosaurian.[3] Galton and Ayyasami (2017) reaffirmed the stegosaurian classification of Dravidosaurus by noting that stegosaurian remains from the Dravidosaurus type locality are under study by one of the original describers of Dravidosaurus.[4]
Discovery and Naming[]
Dravidosaurus Holotype was discovered in Trichinopoly Group of Tamil Nadu by Yadagiri and Ayyasami in the 1970s. In 1979, the both of them describes the fossils as a new genus and species of stegosaur, Dravidosaurus blanfordi, the genus name "Dravido" is after the Dravidanadu(which is commonly used for South Indian states, especially Tamil Nadu), "saurus" being the Greek word of lizards and the species is in honour of H.F. Blanford as he was the one who was doing research and discovery of cretaceous fauna from South Indian region, especially Tamil Nadu.
Classification[]
Dravidosaurus classification is uncertain, some paleontologists say that its a stegosaurid while others as a type of plesiosaur.
Gallery[]
In Media[]
Dravidosaurus as featured in Jurassic Park Institute.
- Draviddosaurus is featured in Jurassic Park Institute as a stegosaur.
Dravidosaurus as featured in Dino Master Duel Cards.
- Dravidosaurus was Featured in Pong's dinosaur battle and there Dino Master Duel card series as a Stegosaur.
Dravidosaurus as featured in Pong Dinosaur Battle.
- Dravidosaurus is mentioned in Walking with Dinosaurs: The Complete Guide To Prehistoric Life (Stegosaurus entry).
References[]
- ↑ Yadagiri, P., and Ayyasami, K., (1979). "A new stegosaurian dinosaur from Upper Cretaceous sediments of south India." Journal of the Geological Society of India, 20(11): 521-530.
- ↑ Chatterjee, S., and Rudra, D. K. (1996). "KT events in India: impact, rifting, volcanism and dinosaur extinction," in Novas & Molnar, eds., Proceedings of the Gondwanan Dinosaur Symposium, Brisbane, Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, 39(3): iv + 489–731 : 489-532
- ↑ Peter M. Galton; Paul Upchurch (2004). "Stegosauria". The Dinosauria (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 343–362. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.
- ↑ Peter M. Galton; Krishnan Ayyasami (2017). "Purported latest bone of a plated dinosaur (Ornithischia: Stegosauria), a "dermal plate" from the Maastrichtian (Upper Cretaceous) of southern India". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen. 285 (1): 91–96. doi:10.1127/njgpa/2017/0671.