Camelotia

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Camelotia
Temporal range: Late Triassic – Early Jurassic, Rhaetian–Hettangian
Camelotia borealis femur.jpg
Femur
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Clade:† Sauropodomorpha
Family:† Melanorosauridae
Genus:† Camelotia
Species:
†C. borealis
Binomial name
†Camelotia borealis
Galton, 1985
Synonyms

Camelotia (meaning "from Camelot") is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Late Triassic or Early Jurassic in what is now England. [1] [2] Paleontologists are divided on which family it may belong to; in the past, Camelotia has generally been assigned to the prosauropods, but this group of primitive dinosaurs is in constant flux. [1] The genus is now considered a member of the family Melanorosauridae, which includes the first true giant herbivorous dinosaurs. [1] [3]

Contents

Discovery and species

Camelotia borealis was described and named in 1985 by Galton [1] : its type specimen comprises several elements with collection numbers NHMUK PV R 2870–R 2874 and R 2876–R 2878, which include vertebrae, ribs, and parts of the pubis, ischium and hind limb. They were collected in 1894 from the Triassic-Jurassic Westbury Formation, dating to the latest Rhaetian-Lowermost Hettangian [1] [4] and were originally attributed to two taxa, "Avalonia" (=Avalonianus) and Picrodon, by Seeley (1898) [5] . Gresslyosaurus turned out to be Camelotia. [6]

Description

From the fragmentary remains of Camelotia, part of the skeleton can be reconstructed. Camelotia likely had a short neck supporting a fairly large skull with small eyes. Its jaws contained many small-to-medium-sized, serrated, leaf-shaped teeth. [7] Its hands and feet had five digits each; the hands in particular were long and narrow, and bore a large claw. [7] The forelimbs were longer than the hind limbs, in contrast to the more derived sauropods. [7] It has been calculated around 10 metres (33 ft) long and to have weighed up to 2.5–3.8 metric tons (2.8–4.2 short tons). [8] [9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Galton, P. M. (1985). Notes on the Melanorosauridae, a family of large prosauropod dinosaurs (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha). Geobios, 18(5), 671-676.
  2. ↑ Galton, P. M. (1998). Saurischian dinosaurs from the Upper Triassic of England: Camelotia (Prosauropoda, Melanorosaridae) and Avalonianus (Theropoda,? Carnosauria). Palaeontographica Abteilung A, 155-172.
  3. ↑ Buffetaut, E., Suteethorn, V., Cuny, G., Tong, H., Le Loeuff, J., Khansubha, S., & Jongautchariyakul, S. (2000). The earliest known sauropod dinosaur. Nature, 407(6800), 72-74.
  4. ↑ Lomax, D. R., & Tamura, N. (2014). Dinosaurs of the British Isles. Manchester: Siri Scientific Press.
  5. ↑ Seeley, H. G. (January 1898). "I.—On large Terrestrial Saurians from the Rhætio Beds of Wedmork Hill, described as Avalonia Sanfordi and Picrodon Herveyi". Geological Magazine. 5 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1017/S0016756800141299. ISSN   1469-5081.
  6. ↑ Galton, P. M. (2005). Bones of large dinosaurs (Prosauropoda and Stegosauria) from the Thaetic Bone Bed (Upper Triassic of Aust Cliff, southwest England. Revue de Paléobiologie, 24(1), 51.
  7. 1 2 3 Redelstorff, R. A. G. N. A., Sander, P. M., & Galtom, P. M. (2013). Unique bone histology in partial large bone shafts from Aust Cliff (England, Upper Triassic): an early independent experiment in gigantism. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
  8. ↑ McPhee, Blair W.; Benson, Roger B.J.; Botha-Brink, Jennifer; Bordy, Emese M. & Choiniere, Jonah N. (2018). "A giant dinosaur from the earliest Jurassic of South Africa and the transition to quadrupedality in early sauropodomorphs". Current Biology. 28 (19): 3143–3151.e7. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.063 . PMID   30270189.
  9. ↑ Paul, Gregory S. (2016). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press. p. 191. ISBN   978-1-78684-190-2. OCLC   985402380.
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