Plateosaurus

Plateosaurus (probably meaning "broad <a href="/facts/Lizard/VPCpCwjT">lizard</a>", often mistranslated as "flat lizard") is a <a href="/facts/Genus/m8EFjSms">genus</a> of <a href="/facts/Plateosauridae/bVpdRAkV">plateosaurid</a> <a href="/facts/Dinosaur/JRdMqBnq">dinosaur</a> that lived during the Late <a href="/facts/Triassic/r6CNxKXC">Triassic</a> <a href="/facts/Period_(geology)/6LBR11yQ">period</a>, around 214 to 204 <a href="/facts/Timeline_of_the_evolutionary_history_of_life/ehf7lh2p">million years ago</a>, in what is now Central and Northern Europe. Plateosaurus is a <a href="/facts/Basal_(phylogenetics)/JQPQXpYg">basal</a> (early) <a href="/facts/Sauropodomorpha/7DBPqQGD">sauropodomorph</a> dinosaur, a so-called <a href="/facts/Prosauropoda/bVpdRAkV">"prosauropod"</a>. The <a href="/facts/Type_species/kL03T6V4">type species</a> is Plateosaurus trossingensis; before 2019, that honor was given to Plateosaurus engelhardti, but it was ruled as undiagnostic (i.e. indistinguishable from other dinosaurs) by the <a href="/facts/ICZN/Pxg8gsqf">ICZN</a>. Currently, there are three valid species; in addition to P. trossingensis, P. longiceps and P. gracilis are also known. However, others have been assigned in the past, and there is no broad consensus on the species <a href="/facts/Taxonomy_(biology)/Qkg8wuyw">taxonomy</a> of plateosaurid dinosaurs. Similarly, there are a plethora of <a href="/facts/Synonym_(taxonomy)/BHLdox7E">synonyms</a> (invalid duplicate names) at the genus level.
Discovered in 1834 by Johann Friedrich Engelhardt and described three years later by <a href="/facts/Christian_Erich_Hermann_von_Meyer/lGoXq0JU">Hermann von Meyer</a>, Plateosaurus was the fifth named dinosaur genus that is still considered valid. Although it had been described before <a href="/facts/Richard_Owen/M8H3td41">Richard Owen</a> formally named Dinosauria in 1842, it was not one of the three genera used by Owen to define the group, because at the time, it was poorly known and difficult to identify as a dinosaur. It is now among the dinosaurs best known to science: over 100 skeletons have been found, some of them nearly complete. The abundance of its fossils in <a href="/facts/Swabia/lymMtyP5">Swabia</a>, Germany, has led to the nickname Schwäbischer Lindwurm (Swabian <a href="/facts/Lindworm/BlWR2RXp">lindworm</a>).
Plateosaurus was a <a href="/facts/Bipedalism/tvLMG77t">bipedal</a> <a href="/facts/Herbivore/me4YFdQA">herbivore</a> with a small skull on a long, flexible neck, sharp but plump plant-crushing teeth, powerful hind limbs, short but muscular arms and grasping hands with large claws on three fingers, possibly used for defence and feeding. Unusually for a dinosaur, Plateosaurus showed strong developmental plasticity: instead of having a fairly uniform adult size, fully grown individuals were between 4.8 and 10 metres (16 and 33 ft) long and weighed between 600 and 4,000 kilograms (1,300 and 8,800 lb). Commonly, the animals lived for at least 12 to 20 years, but the maximum life span is not known.
Despite the great quantity and excellent quality of the fossil material, Plateosaurus was for a long time one of the most misunderstood dinosaurs. Some researchers proposed theories that were later shown to conflict with <a href="/facts/Geology/WGvVRIYF">geological</a> and <a href="/facts/Paleontology/60n5yldd">palaeontological</a> evidence, but have become the paradigm of public opinion. Since 1980 the taxonomy (relationships), <a href="/facts/Taphonomy/x4zxN2Hm">taphonomy</a> (how the animals became embedded and fossilised), biomechanics (how their skeletons worked), and palaeobiology (life circumstances) of Plateosaurus have been re-studied in detail, altering the interpretation of the animal's biology, posture and behaviour.

Plateosaurus open-in-new

Plateosaurus