Dryosaurus Pronunciation

Fun Facts

• ✓Dryosaurus fossils from the Morrison Formation in the western United States have been found alongside some of the most famous dinosaurs in history including Allosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Stegosaurus, meaning this speedy plant-eater had to outrun some of the deadliest predators of the Jurassic.
• ✓The name Dryosaurus, meaning oak lizard, was chosen by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1894, but the first fossil fragments were actually described as early as 1878, meaning scientists argued about what to call this animal for over a decade.
• ✓Dryosaurus had no teeth at the front of its mouth at all, just a hard keratinous beak like a turtle or a parrot, which it used to crop leaves and ferns before chewing them with its ridged back teeth.
• ✓Fossils once classified as African species of Dryosaurus, found in Tanzania at the famous Tendaguru Formation, were later recognized as an entirely separate genus called Dysalotosaurus, showing how one dinosaur name quietly contained multiple hidden species for nearly a century.
• ✓Dryosaurus belonged to Iguanodontia, the same great dinosaur lineage that eventually gave rise to the enormous Iguanodon and the duck-billed hadrosaurs, making this small speedy Jurassic runner an ancient cousin of some of the most successful dinosaurs that ever lived.