Outline: a typical ankylosaur
Sarcolestes
"flesh robber"
- Lived
- 165 to 162 million years ago, Middle Jurassic
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Ankylosaurs
- Found in
- United Kingdom
- Named by
- Lydekker 1893
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
165 million years ago
Field notes
About Sarcolestes
What it was like
Sarcolestes is known from a partial lower jaw with teeth and armor stuck to its side. It was an early ankylosaur, a plant eater, even though its name means flesh robber: the first describer thought it was a meat eater.
Its world
It lived in the Middle Jurassic, in what is now England. It comes from the Oxford Clay, rocks laid down in the sea, which also hold the predator Eustreptospondylus and the stegosaur Loricatosaurus.
How it was found
Lydekker named Sarcolestes in 1893. It is one of the oldest known ankylosaurs.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Ankylosauria
Sources: WikidataNamed in: R. Lydekker. 1893. On the jaw of a new carnivorous dinosaur from the Oxford Clay of Peterborough. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 49:284-287