#plateosaurus

Dinovember: Day 19 - Plateosaurus

Plateosaurus is one of the best-known early dinosaurs, a genus of sauropodomorph that lived during the Late Triassic Period (approximately 214 to 204 million years ago) in what is now Central and Northern Europe.

Name, Diet, and Habitat

• Meaning of its Name: The name Plateosaurus most likely means “broad lizard”, derived from the Ancient Greek platys (“broad” or “wide”) and sauros (“lizard” or “reptile”). It is often mistranslated as “flat lizard” due to secondary meanings of the root word. The name may be a reference to its robust limb bones or overall large size.

• Diet: There is a possibility that Plateosaurus was a herbivore (or plant-eater). Its broad, leaf-shaped teeth and adaptations for a strong bite suggest it processed plants by slicing and mashing, possibly feeding on tougher vegetation. It may have also swallowed gastroliths (or stomach stones) to help grind food.

• Habitat: Fossils have been found across Central Europe (most notably Germany and Switzerland). It more than likely lived in environments that included open plains and perhaps fed on plants in bog-like conditions, where some mass-death assemblages of its fossils may have occurred by becoming stuck in the mud.

Behavior and Modern Relatives

• Behavior:

• Fossil evidence, such as mass assemblages found in places like Trossingen, Germany, suggests Plateosaurus may have lived socially in herds.

• It was primarily a bipedal (or two-legged) dinosaur, but its long neck and powerful limbs would have allowed it to reach high foliage (high browser). It may have used the enormous claw on its thumb (called a pollex) for defense and/or feeding.

• Studies of its scleral rings (bone rings in the eye) indicate that it was active for short periods during both the day and night (cathemeral activity).

• Modern Relatives: As an early, or basal, sauropodomorph, Plateosaurus is considered ancestral to the later, gigantic, long-necked sauropods of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods, such as Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Alamosaurus, Sauroposeidon, Nemegtosaurus, and the Mongolian titan. Its modern-day descendants, like all non-avian dinosaurs, are birds.

Inaccuracies in Media

The most significant inaccuracy commonly found in older media and reconstructions of Plateosaurus (and all other "prosauropods") relates to its posture: