Technosaurus
"Tech lizard"
- Lived
- 227 to 206 million years ago, Late Triassic
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Group
- Early ornithischians, Silesauridae
- Found in
- United States
- Named by
- Chatterjee 1984
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
220 million years ago
Habitat
Rivers crossed a muddy floodplain in what is now Texas. Dinosaurs and close relatives from the Cooper Canyon Formation include Coelophysis and Soumyasaurus.
Field notes
About Technosaurus
What it was like
Technosaurus was a small plant eater known from pieces of the upper and lower jaws. Other bones originally included with it have been excluded. It was long thought to be one of the earliest bird-hipped dinosaurs. Later studies linked it to silesaurids, whose position inside or just outside the dinosaurs remains debated.
Its world
It lived in the Late Triassic in what is now Texas. Its bones come from the Cooper Canyon Formation.
How it was found
Chatterjee named Technosaurus in 1984. It is named after the university where it is kept.
Field gallery
More views of Technosaurus
Scenes reconstructed from the available fossil evidence.
1 of 3
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
A rock formation can hold fossils laid down millions of years apart, so not every animal here met Technosaurus.
The evidence
The science behind Technosaurus
Which parts of the picture come from its own bones, and which come from its relatives.
From its own fossils
- The type material is the tooth-bearing tip of an upper jaw and part of a right lower jaw. The back of a lower jaw first included belongs to a crocodile-line reptile, and a vertebra and an ankle bone cannot be identified.
- The lower teeth have swollen, finely ridged crowns that narrow sharply above the root and grow larger toward the back of the jaw. The upper teeth are straight.
- A groove low on the lower jaw and teeth fused into the bone, exposed by later cleaning of the fossil, link it to the silesaurids.
Borrowed from relatives
- The missing face, eyes, skull roof, neck, shoulders and forearms are restored by comparison with Silesaurus.
Still unknown
- Its skull beyond the two jaw pieces and the rest of its skeleton are unknown, including whether its lower jaw ended in a toothless beak like that of Silesaurus. The tip of the lower jaw is broken.
- Whether the upper and lower jaw pieces come from the same animal, as later studies have argued.
- Its place in the family tree. Experts disagree whether silesaurids were close relatives of dinosaurs or early bird-hipped dinosaurs, and one recent analysis left Technosaurus unresolved among them.
Discovery timeline
- 1984Named itChatterjee
- 2007RedescriptionNesbitt, Irmis & Parker
- 2012Fossil sitesMartz et al.
- 2025Family treeTolchard, Perkins & Nesbitt
Key papers
The research behind what we know of Technosaurus
Named it
Named Technosaurus from fragmentary remains and originally identified it as an early bird-hipped dinosaur.
A new ornithischian dinosaur from the Triassic of North America. The Science of Nature 71: 630-631
Read the paper : A new ornithischian dinosaur from the Triassic of North America (opens in a new tab)Redescription
Restudied the jaw pieces, limited the name to the upper jaw tip and a lower jaw, found similarities to Silesaurus and questioned the original dinosaur classification.
A critical re‐evaluation of the Late Triassic dinosaur taxa of North America. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 5: 209-243
Read the paper : A critical re‐evaluation of the Late Triassic dinosaur taxa of North America (opens in a new tab)Fossil sites
Reassessed the animals and age of the quarry that produced Technosaurus and, after further cleaning of its lower jaw, listed it as a silesaurid.
A taxonomic and biostratigraphic re-evaluation of the Post Quarry vertebrate assemblage from the Cooper Canyon Formation (Dockum Group, Upper Triassic) of southern Garza County, western Texas. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 103: 339-364
Read the paper : A taxonomic and biostratigraphic re-evaluation of the Post Quarry vertebrate assemblage from the Cooper Canyon Formation (Dockum Group, Upper Triassic) of southern Garza County, western Texas (opens in a new tab)Family tree
Described silesaurid limb bones from the base of the Dockum Group in Texas; one family-tree analysis kept Technosaurus as its own entry in an unresolved group.
Silesaurid ( Archosauria: Dinosauriformes ) remains from the base of the Dockum Group ( Late Triassic: Otischalkian ) of Texas provide new insights to the North American record of dinosauriforms. The Anatomical Record 309: 293-313
Read the paper : Silesaurid ( Archosauria: Dinosauriformes ) remains from the base of the Dockum Group ( Late Triassic: Otischalkian ) of Texas provide new insights to the North American record of dinosauriforms (opens in a new tab)
Close relatives
Other members of Silesauridae
Sources: Wikidata