Dicraeosaurus

Live reconstruction of Dicraeosaurus hansemanni

• East Africa ( Tendaguru, Tanzania)

• Dicraeosaurus hansemanni
• Dicraeosaurus sattleri

Dicraeosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic ( Tithonian ) of Tanzania (East Africa). What has been described Dicraeosaurus by the German researcher Werner Janensch dinosaurs.

Description

Dicraeosaurus is a rather small sauropod ( for sauropod standards) of about 13 m in length. Like all sauropods moved the animal on all four legs continued ( Quadrupedie ) and had a small head, long neck, massive body and long tail. However, the neck of Dicraeosaurus compared to other sauropods is rather short. The skull was similar to that of Diplodocus, was thus elongated, with limited overhead on the head nostrils and on the front end of the snout dentition. Most features of Dicraeosaurus can be found in the spine. In the neck and back vertebrae, the spinous processes are very high and forked, and they are also, in contrast to most other sauropods, inclines in the neck forward. On the Y-shaped spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae is also the name of the genus, which can be translated as " forked lizard" refers. Large cavities in the sides of the vertebral bodies, so-called Pleurocoele, as it is typical for sauropods, almost completely missing. The tail is about as long as the rest of the body and ends in a slender, whip-like tip. The legs are strong and columnar and Dicraeosaurus, like all dinosaurs, a toe-walker.

System

Two types of Dicraeosaurus are known, D. and D. hansemanni sattleri. Dicraeosaurus is the eponymous genus of Dicraeosauridae family. Besides Dicraeosaurus also belong to this family the genera Brachytrachelopan from the Upper Jurassic ( Tithonian ) and Amargasaurus from the time of the Lower Cretaceous, both from Patagonia in South America. There are also artlich not allocated to evidence from the early Late Cretaceous ( Cenomanian ) of Egypt and Sudan. The Dicraeosauriden among the Diplodocoiden within the Neosauropoda. Unlike its sister group, the diplodocids that Dicraeosauriden are limited according to the current state of knowledge, all of the southern hemisphere ( Gondwana ).

Site and ecology

Dicraeosaurus comes from the famous reference Tendaguru in Tanzania and was found during the German Tendaguru expeditions from 1909 to 1913. In Tendaguru can distinguish three different layers in which there are dinosaurs and the somewhat different ages are, the Lower, Middle and Upper Saurian Marl. The two types of Dicraeosaurus thus did not live together, but occurred in different layers, Dicraeosaurus hansemanni in the Lower and Middle ( Oxfordian and Kimmeridgian ) and Dicraeosaurus sattleri in the Upper Saurian Marl ( Tithonian ). The site on the Tendaguru represents an intertidal zone along the coast and thus probably not the actual habitat of Dicraeosaurus which should be sought in the hinterland.

Like all sauropods was also Dicraeosaurus a herbivore. Together with Dicraeosaurus other types of sauropods have been found, including Brachiosaurus, Tornieria and, in the upper Dinosaur marl, Janenschia. Other herbivores in the ecosystem of Tendaguru were the Ornithopod Dysalotosaurus and the Stegosaurus kentrosaurus (also called Kentrurosaurus ). Thus, the different herbivores had to specialize, and Dicraeosaurus and Dicraeosauriden overall appear to have been specialized in grazing low vegetation.