Dryptosaurus

Live reconstruction of Dryptosaurus

• North America (New Jersey, USA)

• Dryptosaurus aquilunguis

Dryptosaurus ( " tearing lizard" ) was a medium-sized theropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous ( Maastrichtian ) of North America. The genus will be provided to Tyrannosauroidea and contains only the type species D. aquilunguis. Dryptosaurus was the first meat -eaters among the first dinosaurs found in North America.

Description

Dryptosaurus was about six feet long and had strong, clawed arms and blade-shaped, curved back teeth. The shinbone ( tibia) was longer than the thigh bone (femur ), which enabled him to fast running. The characteristic feature was a huge claw on the first finger, which makes up 21 centimeters in length (without the horny sheath in the living animal ) about 75 percent of the length of the upper arm bone ( humerus). Some scientists have suspected that with the help of this claw, from which you initially believed that they belonged to one of the toes, cut the wires of the prey or the armor of ankylosauruses has been pried open.

Historical

The Dryptosaurus was after Hadrosaurus foulkii the second nearly complete skeleton of a dinosaur Fund and the first of a predatory dinosaur (previously were only known teeth ). He was found in 1863 by Edward Drinker Cope in the marl pits in Haddonfield, New Jersey, the same area was also in the Hadrosaurus foulkii discovered in 1838 whose references 1858 Joseph Leidy was noted. 1868 also came Othniel Charles Marsh to Haddonfield and also find the Bone Wars began between Cope and Marsh, because after Cope Marsh had introduced in the marl pit owners in Haddonfield, he had to discover that this had returned secretly later and the workers and mine owners money for Fossils bot. Dryptosaurus was in contrast to the Hadrosaurus foulkii only temporarily mounted in the museum, but reconstruction drawings by Charles R. Knight made ​​him known.

Cope chose for this dinosaur in 1866 the name Laelaps aquilunguis, according to a hound Laelaps of Actaeon in Greek mythology, the escaped not an animal. But this name was already assigned to a mite genus and therefore had to be changed (priority rule). Ironically, the Erzkonkurrent of Cope Marsh called him in 1877 then Dryptosaurus.

As Dryptosaurus was discovered, he was considered the most formidable predator of all time and believed that he had overthrown with kangaroo -like jumps of its favorite prey, the entenschnabeligen Hadrosaurus to ram her his long claws into the flesh. A number of species of dinosaurs Dryptosaurus was assigned, about Allosaurus medius and Creosaurus potens, but only the type species recognized.