Laosaurus
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Laosaurus Temporal range: Upper Jurassic, Upper Cretaceous |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | Cerapoda |
| Infraorder: | Ornithopoda |
| Family: | Hypsilophodontidae |
| Genus: |
Laosaurus Marsh, 1878 |
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Laosaurus (meaning "stone or fossil lizard") is a genus of hypsilophodont dinosaur. The type species is Laosaurus celer, first described by O.C. Marsh in 1878 from remains from the Oxfordian-Tithonian-age Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming. The validity of this genus is doubtful because it is based on fragmentary fossils. A second species from the Morrison Formation, L. gracilis, and a species from the late Cretaceous of Alberta, Laosaurus minimus, are also considered dubious. It is believed that the three species were hypsilophodonts, basal ornithopods.
Marsh (1878a) named his new genus from vertebrae (YPM 1874) found by Samuel Wendell Williston at Como Bluff, Wyoming, from rocks of the Morrison Formation. The type material includes nine partial and two complete tail vertebral centra, which he concluded came from a "fox-sized" animal. In the same year, he named two other species: L. gracilis, originally based on a back vertebral centrum, a tail vertebral centrum, and part of an ulna; and L. altus, originally based on a pelvis, hindlimb, and tooth (YPM 1876). A review by Peter Galton in 1983 found the type of L. gracilis to consist of thirteen back and eight tail centra, and portions of both hindlimbs.Charles Gilmore had assigned additional remains, including a partial skeleton (CM 11340), to L. gracilis based on size, but Galton transferred the remains to other taxa, assigning the skeleton to Dryosaurus.
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