Name:
Asylosaurus
(Unharmed/sanctuary lizard).
Phonetic: A-sil-o-sore-us.
Named By: Peter Galton - 2007.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha.
Species: A. yalensis (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Uncertain due to lack of remains.
Known locations: England.
Time period: Rhaetian of the Triassic.
Fossil representation: (Holotype YPM 2195)
Partial anterior portion of the skeleton.
The
holotype remains of Asylosaurus were originally
attributed to the genus
Thecodontosaurus,
but a review by Peter Galton saw these remains
established as a new genus. The genus names means
‘unharmed/sanctuary lizard’ and this is a reference as to how this
set of remains were shipped from England to the United States by
Othniel Charles Marsh in the late nineteenth century. Had they have
stayed with the other Thecodontosaurus fossils in
England, they would
have been destroyed in World War Two when the portion of the museum
they were being stored was bombed.
Asylosaurus
is a genus of sauropodomorph
dinosaur, the forerunners to the more
advanced sauropods
that would become common during the Jurassic. The
Asylosaurus genus may have encountered and lived
alongside the other
sauropodomorph genera Thecodontosaurus and Pantydraco.
Further reading
- Notes on the remains of archosaurian reptiles, mostly basal
sauropodomorph dinosaurs, from the 1834 fissure fill
(Rhaetian, Upper Triassic) at Clifton in Bristol, southwest
England, Peter Galton - 2007.