Coelurus

Coelurus fragilis, live hypothetical reconstruction with fletching

• Germany
• North America ( Morrison Formation )

• Coelurus fragilis

Coelurus is a theropod dinosaur from the group of Coelurosauria. It is a small, slender, bipedal carnivore, whose remains in the layers of the Morrison Formation ( Kimmeridgian, Upper Jurassic medium ) were found in the northwestern United States territory. The only type that is currently attributed to this genus, Coelurus fragilis is.

Features

Coelurus was about 2 m long and 20 kg. Compared with the related Ornitholestes are neck and body elongated in total. Also the skull, which is similar to small as in Ornitholestes is slender and graceful - though one can not make accurate statements, as only a piece of the lower jaw is known from the skull.

Finds and Fund History

The first skeleton was the world, discovered in the " Reed's Quarry 13" from Como Bluff, one of the most famous dinosaur graveyards. Bone were recovered over a period of several years. Because of the shallowness of the vertebrae called the Marsh Fund Coelurus fragilis, which means " delicate hollow tail". Later, in 1884, additional material was discovered in the same quarry. Marsh wrote to the discovery of a new Coelurus - type and named it in a short description Coelurus agilis. There has been much later clarified ( Ostrom, 1980) that there are different parts of the same individual at two finds.

Four years later, in 1884, named Marsh another Coelurus Art by scanty remains ( a claw and tooth) were found in the early Cretaceous Potomac Formation in Maryland. The Fund, now known as " Coelurus " gracilis could belong to a Dromaeosauriden - one belonging to Coelurus is excluded today.