Plateosaurus Temporal range: Upper Triassic
214–204 mya | |
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Mounted skeleton of Plateosaurus, Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany | |
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Genus: | Plateosaurus Meyer, 1837
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Plateosaurus is a prosauropod dinosaur genus. They lived during the Upper Triassic period, around 214 to 294 million years ago in what is now Europe.[1]
They were very common in their day. Over 100 skeletons have been found, some of them nearly complete. Many fossils have come from Swabia, Germany.
Plateosaurus was the first long-necked plant eater in the Triassic. An adult Plateosaurus could weigh up to 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and grow 27 feet (8.2 m) long. They had plump plant-crushing teeth, powerful hind limbs, short but muscular arms and grasping hands with large claws on three fingers. They probably used their sharp thumb claws to defend themselves against predators.[2]
The explanation of the large number of skeletons is that the areas were probably mud-traps.[3]