Your Daily Fossil

Plateosaurus 

Mounted specimen at the Institute for Geosciences of the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany

When: Late Triassic (214-204 million years ago)

Where: Central and Northern Europe

What: Plateosaurus is one of the first dinosaurs found, named in 1837, making it the 5th named genus that is still valid today. However, this species was not included in the initial formation of the clade in 1842 as it was based upon material too fragmentary to confidently identify it as a dinosaur. This is far from the case today, as Plateosaurus is one of the most well known dinosaurs, with over 100 partial (and some complete) skeletons known, most from Germany.  

Plateosaurus is a basal sauropodomorph, which means it falls on the lineage that gave rise to the sauropods. The first of the Saurischia (theropods + sauropods) were bipedal, and we can see from Plateosaurus (and other sauropodomorphs) that the lineage became herbivorous before dropping down onto all fours and increasing to gigantic sizes. Plateosaurus was not only able to walk on just its hind legs, it was quite an adapt runner. The largest Plateosaurus reached 33 feet (10 meters) long and are estimated to have weighed over 8,500 lbs (4,000 kg).