Gasosaurus

Gasosaurus, skeletal reconstruction

• Asia (China)

• Gasosaurus constructus

Gasosaurus is a genus theropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Asia. Few fossils have been discovered in rocks from the Middle Jurassic of the southern Chinese province of Sichuan. The only type ( type species ) is described Gasosaurus constructus; The first description was in 1985 by Dong Zhiming and Tang Zilu.

Gasosaurus is a basal ( near origin ) theropod, its vortex, for example, show some very original features. The length of the dinosaur was about 4 meters.

Description

Its systematic position within the theropods is still unclear because of the poor fossil situation. Some consider him an original Coelurosaurier, others rank him as a Carnosaurier. It could also be identical to Kaijiangosaurus, a fossil hardly documented theropods, which comes from the same rock formation.

Gasosaurus is by a loose part skull skeleton ( holotype IVPP V7264 ) is known which consists among other things of vertebrae, the humerus, pelvis, leg and foot bones. It comes from the layers of Xiashaximiao lineup China's Sichuan province.

Naming

The name of the genus is ludicrous meant. " Gasosaurus " means, for a " gasoline lizard" ( after the English word gas ( oline ) and the Greek sauros ) and is named after the oil drilling, which discovered the site. However, the Chinese word for gasoline is in addition also " make trouble " - a fitting name for a predatory dinosaur.