Coelophysis When: Late Triassic (~215 to 200 million years ago)Where: Restricted to South Western Un

Coelophysis When: Late Triassic (~215 to 200 million years ago)Where: Restricted to South Western United States. However, very similar animals have been found worldwide. What: Coelophysis is a very important little dinosaur. It is one of the oldest theropods known, and the most basel taxon that has been universally accepted as a theropod. Dinosaurs are spilt into two main groups, the Saurischia  and the Ornithischia. Theropods and sauropods are both within Saurischia. As different as a T-rex looks from a Diplodocus when you get down to the base of the saurischians it is really hard to tell taxa from each line apart from one another.  Coelophysis with its slender form, elongated skull, reduced number of fingers, and other features, is an undisputed theropod. Even though the Mesozoic time period is popularly thought of as the era of dinosaurs, it is only in the latter part of the triassic that dinosaurs started to diversify - and it was not until the Jurassic that they came to dominate the land.  Coelophysis was a small theropod compared with the giants of these later periods, it stood about 3 feet (~1 meter) high at the hip. Its long tail and neck though brought its length to 10 feet ( ~3 meters) on average. Its commonly pictured in groups in reconstructions as it is thought to have hunted in packs. This is based on mass mortality beds of this taxon; dozens upon dozens of specimens have been recovered from Ghost Ranch, New Mexico - it is the state fossil!  Feathers on non-avain theropod dinosaurs have been a big deal in recent years, but all of the fossils with evidence of feathers belong to later occurring theropods, far removed from Coelophysis.  -- source link
Tumblr Blog : dailyfossil.tumblr.com

More pics about