Talarurus (tal-uh-ROOR-us) was a hippo-sized ankylosaur (armoured dinosaur) with heavy armour and a club tail. It was named by Maleev in 1952.
| Talarurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous
| |
|---|---|
| File:Talarurus1.jpg | |
| Skeletal reconstruction of Talarurus plicatospineus | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | |
| Phylum: | |
| Class: | |
| Superorder: | |
| Order: | |
| Suborder: | |
| Infraorder: | |
| Family: | |
| Genus: | Talarurus
|
| Species: | T. plicatospineus
|
| Binomial name | |
| Talarurus plicatospineus | |
Where and when did Talarurus live?
Talarurus remains have been discovered in the southeastern parts of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, so Talarurus may have lived there. Scientists assume that the habitat the Talarurus lived in were lowland floodplains millions of years back because most Talarurus remains were found in the Gobi Desert's Bayn Shire Formation. Rocks found in and around the Bayn Shire Formation date from about 95-88 milliom years ago in the Late Cretaceous period. To figure out the age of Talarurus more accurately, dinosaur remains from similar-aged rocks somewhere else are required to be compared with Bayn Shire Foundation dinosaur remains. Sadly, there are only a few places in the world that show animal life on land in the early part of the Late Cretaceous. Scientists conclude that Talarurus lived in lowland floodplains in the southeastern part of the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, about 98-88 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period from all the information they have gathered currently.
The genus was discovered in the 1950s by a Soviet expedition, and is now known from five or more individual specimens, including two incomplete skulls, one nearly complete skeleton, and many osteoderms. Talarurus (Greek talaros = "wicker basket" + Greek oura = "tail" + -us) is presently one of the better-known ankylosaurs from Mongolia.
The skull of Talarurus measured approximately 24 centimeters in length (9.4 in) by approximately 22 cm wide (8.7 in), and its body length has been estimated at 4-6 meters (13-20 feet). This ankylosaur had five toes on the forefoot (a pentadactyl manus) and four on the hind foot (tetradactyl pes). Additional diagnostic characteristics include dorsal vertebrae with transversely broad hypapophyses and osteoderms with furrowed ornamentation.
Vickaryous et al. (2004) note the presence of two distinct ankylosaurid clades during the Late Cretaceous, "one consisting of North American taxa and the other restricted to Asian taxa. The oldest member of the Asian clade...is Talarurus plicatospineus."
Talarurus in the Media
Talarurus had a bit part in the beginning of the Disney computer-animated film, Dinosaur.
References
- Maleev, E. A. 1952. Noviy ankilosavr is verchnego mela Mongolii [A new ankylosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia]. Doklady Akademii Nauk SSSR 87(2):273-276.
- Maryanska, 1977. Ankylosauridae (Dinosauria) from Mongolia. Palaeontol. Polonica 37:85-151.
- Tumanova, T. A. 1999. Armoured dinosaurs from the Cretaceous of Mongolia. In: Benton, M. J., Shishkin, M. A., Unwin, D. M., and Kurochkin, E. N. The Age of Dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge:517-532.
- Vickaryous, Maryanska, and Weishampel 2004. Chapter Seventeen: Ankylosauria. in The Dinosauria (2nd edition), Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H., editors. University of California Press.
