Outline: a typical theropod
Camposaurus
KAMP-oh-SORE-us
"Camp's lizard"
Type species Camposaurus arizonensis
- Lived
- 227 to 206 million years ago, Late Triassic
- Diet
- Carnivore
- Group
- Theropods, Coelophysidae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Hunt et al. 1998
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
220 million years ago
Field notes
About Camposaurus
What it was like
Camposaurus was a small, slender predator related to Coelophysis. It is known only from parts of the lower legs and ankle. It may be one of the oldest known members of the neotheropods, the group that includes all later meat-eating dinosaurs.
Its world
It lived in the Late Triassic in what is now Arizona. Its bones come from the Chinle Formation, a land of rivers and forests where early dinosaurs such as Chindesaurus lived alongside much larger reptiles.
How it was found
Hunt and colleagues named it in 1998 from one find. The type species is Camposaurus arizonensis.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Coelophysidae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: A. P. Hunt, S. G. Lucas, and A. B. Heckert, R. M. Sullivan, M. G. Lockley. 1998. Late Triassic dinosaurs from the western United States. Géobios 31(4):511-531