Outline: a typical ornithopod
Lurdusaurus
LUR-doo-SORE-us
"heavy lizard"
Type species Lurdusaurus arenatus
- Lived
- 113 to 101 million years ago, Early Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 9 m (30 ft)
- Group
- Ornithopods
- Found in
- Niger
- Named by
- Taquet and Russell 1999
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical ornithopod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
105 million years ago
Field notes
About Lurdusaurus
What it was like
Lurdusaurus was a heavy, low-slung relative of Iguanodon, about 9 meters (30 feet) long. It had a small head, a bulky barrel-shaped body, strong arms and a large spike on each thumb. It probably walked on all fours most of the time.
Its world
It lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Niger. Its bones come from the Elrhaz Formation, a land of rivers where it lived alongside the sail-backed Ouranosaurus, the long-necked Nigersaurus and the fish-eating Suchomimus.
How it was found
Taquet and Russell named it in 1999 from one partial skeleton. The type species is Lurdusaurus arenatus.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Iguanodontoidea
Sources: WikidataNamed in: P. Taquet and D. A. Russell. 1999. A massively-constructed iguanodont from Gadoufaoua, Lower Cretaceous of Niger. Annales de Paléontologie 85(1):85-96