Scutellosaurus skoo-teloh-SORRUHS
"little shield"
- Length
- 1.3 m (4.3 ft)
- Period
- Early Jurassic (196 Mya)
- Place
- United Kingdom
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Scutellosaurus ( ) is a genus of basal thyreophoran dinosaur that lived approximately 196 million years ago during the early part of the Jurassic Period in what is now Arizona, USA. It is classified in Thyreophora, the armoured dinosaurs; its closest relatives may have been Emausaurus and Scelidosaurus, another armored dinosaur which was mainly a quadrupedal dinosaur, unlike bipedal Scutellosaurus. It is one of the earliest representatives of the armored dinosaurs and the basalmost form discovered to date. Scutellosaurus was a small, lightly-built, ground-dwelling herbivore, that could grow up to an estimated 1.3 m long.
What we know
- Named by Colbert, 1981.
- Body length estimated at about 1.3 m.
- Fossils found in United Kingdom.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Scutellosaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.