Outline: a typical ankylosaur
Struthiosaurus
"ostrich lizard"
- Lived
- 84 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 2.5 m (8 ft)
- Group
- Ankylosaurs, Nodosauridae
- Found in
- Austria, Romania and Spain
- Named by
- Bunzel 1870
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical ankylosaur shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
75 million years ago
Also reported from France.
Field notes
About Struthiosaurus
What it was like
Struthiosaurus was one of the smallest armored dinosaurs, about 2.5 meters (8 feet) long. It had spikes on its shoulders and bands of armor on its back. Its small size may come from life on islands.
Its world
It lived in the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Austria, Romania and Spain. Europe was then a chain of islands, and it shared them with the small plant eaters Rhabdodon and Zalmoxes, the duckbill relative Telmatosaurus and the dwarf sauropod Magyarosaurus.
How it was found
Bunzel named Struthiosaurus in 1870. The odd name came from the first skull piece, which he thought looked like a bird's.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Nodosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: E. Bunzel. 1870. Notice of a fragment of a reptilian skull from the Upper Cretaceous of Grünbach. Quarterly Review of the Geological Society of London 26:394