Pronunciation: em-ow-SOR-us
Meaning: Ernst Moritz Arndt University lizard
Author/s: Haubold (1991)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Grimmen, Germany
Discovery Chart Position: #349
Emausaurus ernsti
Emausaurus is known from the majority of a skull but the minority of anything else. Fortunately, the minority of anything else includes scutes and spines, so we know it was a thyreophoran ("shield-bearer"), although Dong's decision to resurrect Scelidosauridae in 2001 (some 130 years after E.D. Cope's original conception) to house this and a handful of armoured and related but hotly-debated critters raised a few eyebrows, and was never really embraced.
With Scelidosauridae now back in obscurity where most experts feel it should never have returned, Emausaurus and its archaic brethren Scutellosaurus and Scelidosaurus find themselves at the foot of Thyreophora, possibly as ancestors of the two groups they fall just outside of (Ankylosauria and Stegosauria). Emausaurus is undoubtedly armoured but more modestly so than ankylosaurids, while certain features of its skull are closer to the Mid-Jurassic Sichuan stegosaur Huayangosaurus.
The remains of Emausaurus were discovered in Germany during the 1960s/70s when the then "state of the art" preservation methods for fossils weren't exactly up to snuff. The acids and paint meant to clean and preserve them are the very things that are responsible for the alarming deterioration into their current sorry state, and while a damage limitation exercise was undertaken recently in an attempt to stop the rot, hopes weren't high that it would actually work, so scientists took CT scans and digital profiling, just in case the fossils turned to dust before their very eyes.
With Scelidosauridae now back in obscurity where most experts feel it should never have returned, Emausaurus and its archaic brethren Scutellosaurus and Scelidosaurus find themselves at the foot of Thyreophora, possibly as ancestors of the two groups they fall just outside of (Ankylosauria and Stegosauria). Emausaurus is undoubtedly armoured but more modestly so than ankylosaurids, while certain features of its skull are closer to the Mid-Jurassic Sichuan stegosaur Huayangosaurus.
The remains of Emausaurus were discovered in Germany during the 1960s/70s when the then "state of the art" preservation methods for fossils weren't exactly up to snuff. The acids and paint meant to clean and preserve them are the very things that are responsible for the alarming deterioration into their current sorry state, and while a damage limitation exercise was undertaken recently in an attempt to stop the rot, hopes weren't high that it would actually work, so scientists took CT scans and digital profiling, just in case the fossils turned to dust before their very eyes.
Etymology
Emausaurus is composed of an acronym of the Ernst Moritz Arndt University whose students helped excavate its remains, and the Greek "sauros" (lizard). The species epithet, ernsti, honors its discoverer - Werner Ernst.
Discovery
The remains of Emausaurus were discovered in an unnamed unit near Grimmen, the capital of Vorpommern-Rügen (a district in the State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern), Germany, by Werner Ernst in the summer of 1963.
The holotype (SGWG 85) is a partial skull with associated skeletal scraps.
