Suchosaurus facts for kids
Quick facts for kids SuchosaurusTemporal range: Early Cretaceous
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| Holotype tooth of S. cultridens | |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Clade: | Saurischia |
| Clade: | Theropoda |
| Family: | †Spinosauridae |
| Genus: | †Suchosaurus Owen, 1841 |
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Suchosaurus (say "Sook-oh-SORE-us") means "crocodile lizard." It was a meat-eating theropod dinosaur that lived in England during the Cretaceous period. When its first fossils were found, people thought it was a type of Crocodile! These first fossils were mostly teeth. So far, scientists have named two different kinds of Suchosaurus.
Discovering Suchosaurus
The story of Suchosaurus began in 1820. A scientist named Gideon Mantell found some fossilized teeth near East Sussex, England. Two years later, in 1822, another British naturalist, William Clift, looked at them. He thought they were from a crocodile.
In 1824, a famous scientist named Georges Cuvier also mentioned these teeth. He was one of the first to study a type of dinosaur called a spinosaurid. But back then, no one knew that spinosaurids had teeth that looked a lot like crocodile teeth.
More Discoveries
Many years later, in 1897, a second type of Suchosaurus was named. It was called "Suchosaurus girardi". This happened after two pieces of a jawbone and one tooth were found in Portugal.
For a long time, most scientists thought Suchosaurus was just an unusual type of crocodile. But things changed in 1998. A paleontologist named Angela Milner was studying another dinosaur called Baryonyx. She noticed that the teeth of Baryonyx looked very much like the teeth of Suchosaurus.
In 2003, Angela Milner suggested that Suchosaurus and Baryonyx might actually be the same animal! The teeth of Suchosaurus are also very similar to those of Cristatusaurus and Suchomimus. All these clues suggest that Suchosaurus was part of a group of dinosaurs called Baryonychinae. These dinosaurs are known for their crocodile-like snouts and teeth.
Images for kids
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Skeletal reconstruction of Baryonyx, which might be the same as Suchosaurus.
See also
In Spanish: Suchosaurus para niños
