DRYOSAURUS
a plant-eating dryosaurid ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America.
Pronunciation: DRY-o-SOR-us
Meaning: Tree Lizard
Author/s: Marsh (
1894)
Synonyms: See
below
First Discovery: Wyoming, USA
Discovery Chart Position: #81
Dryosaurus altus
Laosaurus altus (Marsh, 1878)
Laosaurus altas (Gegenbaur, 1898). Misspelling.
(High Tree Lizard)Etymology
Marsh didn't provide an etymology for
Dryosaurus, but it stems from the Greek "drys" (oak, tree) and "sauros" (lizard). Although some sources claim "oak lizard" refers to the shape of its teeth, no teeth were referred to as "oak leaf-shaped" in Marsh's description. In fact, only a single, slightly serrated and ridged tooth was known for the
Dryosaurus holotype and it looks nothing like an oak leaf. Instead, "tree lizard" is assumed to be a reference to its woodland habitat. The
species epithet,
altus, means "high" in Latin, as it was the taller species of
Laosaurus, the genus to which its remains were initially assigned by Marsh in 1878.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Late Jurassic
Stage: Kimmeridgian-Tithonian
Age range: 156-145 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: 3 meters
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: 100 Kg
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Marsh OC (1878) "
Principal characters of American Jurassic dinosaurs. Part I".
American Journal of Science, s3-16(95) 411-416. DOI: 10.2475/ajs.s3-16.95.411.
• Marsh OC (1894) "
The typical Ornithopoda of the American Jurassic".
American Journal of Science, s3-48(283) 85-90. DOI: 10.2475/ajs.s3-48.283.85.
• Galton PM (1973) "The cheeks of ornithischian dinosaurs".
Lethaia, 6: 67–89.
• Galton PM (1977) "
The ornithopod dinosaur Dryosaurus and a Laurasia-Gondwanaland connection in the Upper Jurassic".
Nature, 268: 230–232.
• Galton PM (1978) "Fabrosauridae, the basal family of ornithischian dinosaurs (Reptilia: Ornithopoda)".
Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 52(1): 138–159.
• Galton PM (1980) "
Dryosaurus and
Camptosaurus, intercontinental genera of Upper Jurassic ornithopod dinosaurs".
Société Géologique de France Mémoires, 139: 103–108.
• Galton PM (1981) "
Dryosaurus, a hypsilophodontid dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic of North America and Africa postcranial
skeleton".
Paläontologische Zeitschrift, 55(3–4): 271-312.
• Galton PM (1983) "The cranial anatomy of
Dryosaurus, a hypsilophodontid dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic of North America and East Africa, with a review of hypsilophodontids from the Upper Jurassic of North America".
Geologica et Palaeontologica, 17: 207-243.
• Horner JR, de Ricqlés A, Padian K and Scheetz RD (2009) "Comparative long bone histology and growth of the "hypsilophodontid" dinosaurs
Orodromeus makelai,
Dryosaurus altus, and
Tenontosaurus tillettii (Ornithischia: Euornithopoda)".
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 29(3): 734-747. DOI: 10.1671/039.029.0312.
• Paul GS (2010) "
The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs".
• Carpenter K and Galton PM (2018) "
A photo documentation of bipedal ornithischian dinosaurs from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, USA".
Geology of the Intermountain West, 5: 167–207. DOI: 10.31711/giw.v5.pp167-207.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
DRYOSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/DRYOSAURUS›. Web access: 05th Mar 2026.
