- published: 10 Sep 2015
- views: 71
Dinocephalosaurus is a genus of long necked, aquatic protorosaur that inhabited the Triassic seas. The age of the fossil horizon that the fossils of Dinocephalosaurus were found in was initially estimated at 228 million years; subsequent study by Wang et al. (2014) indicated that its age was actually 244 ± 1.3 million years. Its name means "terrible headed lizard", because the first specimen found was just a skull, discovered near Xinmin in Guizhou Province, China in 2002. The second specimen found was near the same location and contained the head and much of the postcrainal skeleton, minus the tail. Dinocephalosaurus is the "First record of protorosaurid reptile (Order Protorosauria) from the Middle Triassic of China".
Dinocephalosaurus is mostly closely compared with Tanystropheus, both being protorosaurs with necks twice as long as their bodies. While Tanystropheus's neck was composed of twelve elongated cervical vertebrae, Dinocephalosaurus's is from the addition of cervical vertebrae with a minimum of 25, giving the neck a length of ~1.7 m compared to a body length of about 1 m. The necks of both taxa are thought to have evolved convergently. The use of the long neck in Tanystropheus is not fully understood, but it was used for prey capture in Dinocephalosaurus. Dinocephalosaurus differed from all other protorosaurs in the fact that it was the only one that was fully aquatic, but is thought to have laid its eggs on land. Where most protorosaurs had ossified limbs adapted for terrestrial life, dinocephalosaurus "retained juvenile characteristics in the adult stage, as in many other aquatic tetrapods".
""Tanystropheus"" , was a 6 metre long reptile that dated from the Middle Triassic period. It is recognizable by its extremely elongated neck, which measured 3 metres long - longer than its body and tail combined. The neck was composed of 12–13 extremely elongate vertebrae Fossils have been found in Europe, the Middle East and China. Complete skeletons of juvenile individuals are most abundant in the Besano Formation of Italy, dating to 232 million years ago during the middle Triassic period . "Tribelesodon", originally considered to be a pterosaur by Francesco Bassani in 1886, is now recognized as a junior synonym to "Tanystropheus". The best-known species is "Tanystropheus longobardicus". Other currently recognized species include "T. conspicuus" and "T. meridensis". Another ju...
This is a video I took ar Button Bay State Park in Vergennes Vermont on July 30, 2011. I am a 16 year old amature videophotographer and this is the first video I shot of "champ"/"champs". I own all rights to this video.