Corosaurus
Name:
Corosaurus
(Coro lizard).
Phonetic: Co-roe-sore-us.
Named By: Ermine Cowles Case - 1936.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia,
Sauropterygia, Pistosauroidea, Corosauridae.
Species: C. alcovensis
(type).
Diet: Piscivore/Carnivore.
Size: Around 1 meter long.
Known locations: USA, Wyoming - Alcova
Limestone Formation.
Time period: Anisian of the Triassic.
Fossil representation: Several individuals.
Originally
described as a nothosaur,
Corosaurus is now
identified as a
pistosaurid, a kind of sauropterygian reptile that is related to but
separate to the true nothosaurs. The pistosauroids are established
around the type genus pistosaurus, and it may have been these kinds
of marine reptiles that were actually ancestral to the plesiosaurs
that
would begin to appear around the late Triassic and early Jurassic.
Fossils
of Corosaurus have been dated to be around
245-247 million years
old, which firmly places them within the early Anisian stage of the
mid Triassic. The small size of Corosaurus
indicates that members of
the genus were probably predators of smaller marine organisms along the
lines of fish.
Further reading
- A nothosaur from the Triassic of Wyoming - Ermine Cowles Case
- 1936.
- Corosaurus alcovensis Case and the phylogenetic
interrelationships
of Triassic stem-group Sauropterygia - Olivier Rieppel - 1998.
- Anatomy and Relationships of Corosaurus alcovensis
(Diapsida:
Sauropterygia) and the Triassic Alcova Limestone of Wyoming -
Glenn William Storrs -1991.
-
Corosaurus alcovensis Case and the phylogenetic interrelationships of
Triassic stem-group Sauropterygia. - Zoological Journal of the Linnean
Society. 124 (1): 1–41. - Olivier Rieppel - 1998.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Random favourites
 |
 |
 |
 |