Camptosaurus
Overview
- Not to be confused with CamposaurusCamposaurusCamposaurus is a coelophysoid dinosaur genus from the Late Triassic of North America. With fossils dating back to the early to middle Norian stage, it is the oldest known neotheropod. It is known from partial lower leg bones, holotype UCMP 34498, and other fragmentary material...
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Camptosaurus (icon ) is a genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
of plant-eating, beaked ornithischian dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s of the Late Jurassic
Late Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 161.2 ± 4.0 to 145.5 ± 4.0 million years ago , which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata. In European lithostratigraphy, the name "Malm" indicates rocks of Late Jurassic age...
period of western North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
. The name means 'flexible lizard', (Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
καμπτος/kamptos meaning 'bent' and σαυρος/sauros meaning 'lizard').
On September 4, 1879 William Harlow Reed in Albany County, Wyoming found the remains of a small euornithopod.
