Proceratosaurus

Head reconstruction of Proceratosaurus bradleyi

Proceratosaurus is a genus theropod dinosaur from the group of Coelurosauria. This genus belongs to only the type species Proceratosaurus bradleyi.

Features

Proceratosaurus was a small, lightly built, about three feet long bipeder carnivores. So far, only a skull with the jaw bone is known from the Middle Jurassic strata ( Bathonian ) of the Great Oolite in Gloucestershire, England originated. Although the skull roof is very incomplete, still a head ornament was detected. Mostly a little horn is believed that sat above the nostrils - but it could also be a comb, as it occurs for example in Monolophosaurus. The skull is slightly overall built.

The teeth of the front half of the jaw are significantly smaller, and a conical shape as the teeth of the rear half of the jaw; the same feature is normally only found in the North American Coelurosaurier Ornitholestes.

System

Originally, the fossils in 1910 by Arthur Smith Woodward Megalosaurus were attributed, he called the animal Megalosaurus bradleyi. In 1926 Friedrich von Huene wrote the bones of a separate class within the Ceratosauria to which he called Proceratosaurus. Proceratosaurus means " in front of the horned dinosaurs ", as held by Huene the animal for a precursor of Ceratosaurus, which also wore a nose horn. Subsequent phylogenetic studies, however, have any affiliation with the Coelurosauria result - he could be more closely related to Ornitholestes hermanni (Paul, 1988). Together with Gasosaurus constructus he is so geologically oldest known representative of this group. According to a new study Proceratosaurus is the oldest members of the Tyrannosauroidea.

Gregory S. Paul wrote this genus in 1988 a braincase ( neurocranium ) to which is known as Piveteausaurus divesensis, and named the new way Proceratosaurus divesensis. The phylogenetic classification of Piveteausaurus is controversial, and the thesis of a closer relationship with Proceratosaurus is doubted by most researchers.

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