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Sauropus

Name means: “lizard foot”4

Ate: MeatMeat-eating dinosLate Triassic

Sauropus was a meat-eating dinosaur that left its footprints in the mud millions of years ago. Scientists study these fossil footprints to learn how it walked and lived.1

Lived

227 to 206 million years ago4

Late Triassic

Food

Meat4

Length

18 to 22 m2

Weight

28.3 tonnes to 46.9 tonnes2

subadult holotype specimen

Height

9.4 to 13 m2

head height

Top speed

about 12 km/h (7 mph)

Running, estimate

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

head height

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 8 elephants

as long as 5 cars parked in a rowas long as 120 bananas end to endas heavy as 9400 watermelonsas tall as 2.5 giraffes standing on each other

How big was Sauropus compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast was it?

A person walking about 5 km/h (3 mph)

Sauropus about 12 km/h (7 mph)

A kid on a bike about 22 km/h (14 mph)

A galloping horse about 65 km/h (40 mph)

A cheetah about 100 km/h (62 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

Sauropus is known only from its fossil footprints, called ichnofossils, not from bones.1

One Sauropus footprint might have been made by a sitting dinosaur, perhaps one similar to Psittacosaurus.1

The name Sauropus was first used in 1845 by Edward Hitchcock.4

Some scientists think the name Sauropus should be abandoned because the original footprint is too worn to identify.1

Sauropus footprints are found in rocks from the Norian age, about 227 to 205 million years ago.4

AI-made picture of Sauropus — An AI-made picture of how Sauropus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Sauropus

?How big were Sauropus footprints?

The footprints are not described with exact measurements in the sources, but one large tetradactyl track from a similar dinosaur was 43 to 56 cm long.3

?What did Sauropus eat?

Sauropus was a meat-eating dinosaur, so it ate other animals.1 4

?When did Sauropus live?

Sauropus footprints are from the Norian age, about 227 to 205 million years ago.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Sauropus
Named by: Hitchcock 18454
Group: Meat-eating dinos
Family / clade: Sauropodidae4
Classification: Theropoda4
Age of the rocks: 227 to 206 million years (Norian)4
Fossil records: 8 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Edward Hitchcock named Sauropus in 1845 based on fossil footprints found in Massachusetts, USA.4
Still debated: Scientists debate whether Sauropus is a valid name, because the original footprint is too worn to be sure what made it.1

Where the facts come from

Sauropus (ichnogenus) (en.wikipedia.org)
Brachiosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
PeerJ Basal sauropodomorph locomotion: ichnological lessons from the Late Triassic trackways of bipeds and quadrupeds (Elliot Formation, main Karoo Basin) (peerj.com)
Sauropus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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