Outline: a typical ornithopod
Claosaurus
KLAY-oh-SORE-us
"broken lizard"
Type species Claosaurus agilis
- Lived
- 90 to 72 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ornithopods
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Marsh 1890
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
80 million years ago
Field notes
About Claosaurus
What it was like
Claosaurus was an early relative of the duck-billed dinosaurs. It had a long tail, long hind legs and a toothy beak, but it was smaller and simpler than the big duckbills that came later.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous in North America. Its first skeleton was found in the Niobrara chalk of Kansas, which formed on the floor of a shallow sea. Its body probably floated out to sea after death, like that of the armored Niobrarasaurus from the same rocks.
How it was found
Marsh named Claosaurus in 1890. The type species is Claosaurus agilis. The name refers to the jumbled, broken way its bones were found.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Hadrosauroidea
Sources: WikidataNamed in: O. C. Marsh. 1890. Additional characters of the Ceratopsidae, with notice of new Cretaceous dinosaurs. American Journal of Science 39:418-426