Texasetes

• USA ( Texas)

• Texasetes pleurohalio Coombs, 1995

Texasetes is a little known genus of bird Beck dinosaur ( Ornithischia ) from the group of Ankylosauria.

Features

Texasetes was a small Ankylar with an estimated 2.5 to 3 meter length. From this dinosaur so far some vertebrae, parts of the shoulder girdle and pelvis as well as individual limb bones and bony plates ( osteoderms ) have been found. From the construction of the shoulder blade and the bone plates to one belonging to the ankylosauruses suggests, otherwise the exact body is unknown. Presumably, his body was like all ankylosauruses with an armor of bony plates covered the limbs were short and stocky, the animal was moving on all fours ( quadruped ) and fed on plants.

Discovery and designation

The fossil remains of Texasetes were discovered in the Paw -Paw Formation in Tarrant County in the U.S. state of Texas. Initially, they were held for a sauropod, only Walter Coombs recognized the genus as Ankylar and described it in 1995, the genus name means " people of Texas ." The only described species and therefore type species is T. pleurohalio. The finds are (late Albian ) dated to the late Cretaceous to an age of about 107 to 100 million years.

System

From its first describer Texasetes was filed within the Ankylosauria in the group of Nodosauridae. Other systems such as the Vickaryous et al. (2004) hold the finds too sparse for an accurate classification and list him as " incertae sedis Ankylosauria ". From the same formation comes with Pawpawsaurus another Ankylar, but so far only the skull was found by the. Maybe it involves the same genus.