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Anarosaurus

Say it: an-AR-oh-SORE-us

Ate: MeatSea reptilesMiddle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Anarosaurus was a small, swimming reptile that lived in the sea during the Middle Triassic, about 247 to 241 million years ago. It was not a dinosaur, but a cousin of plesiosaurs, with flippers and a long tail.1 2

Fun fact: this sea reptile swam while dinosaurs walked on land. Everyone calls them dinos, but they were a different branch of reptiles.

Lived

247 to 241 million years ago2

Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Fossils have been found in Germany and the Netherlands, in rocks from the Middle Triassic.1 2

Food

Meat1

Length

0.5 to 0.6 m1

estimated body length

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 3 bananas end to end

How big was Anarosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Anarosaurus was tiny, only about 50 to 60 cm (1.6 to 2.0 ft) long, smaller than a modern cat.1

It had two different species: Anarosaurus pumilio and Anarosaurus heterodontus, which had different tooth shapes.1

The name Anarosaurus means 'without lizard' in Greek, but scientists are not sure why it was given that name.1

Anarosaurus lived in a shallow sea that covered parts of Europe during the Triassic, and its fossils are found in rocks that were once seafloor.1

The first fossil of Anarosaurus was found in Germany, but the original specimen was lost or destroyed during World War II.1

Anarosaurus is a pachypleurosaur, a group of small, primitive sauropterygians that were ancestors of the giant plesiosaurs.1

AI-made picture of Anarosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Anarosaurus might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Anarosaurus
Named by: Dames 18902
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Pachypleurosauridae2
Classification: Sauropterygia2
Age of the rocks: 247 to 241 million years ()2
Rock formations: Vossenveld, Jena2
Countries: Netherlands, Germany2
Fossil records: 4 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Anarosaurus was named by German paleontologist Wilhelm Dames in 1890, based on fossils found in Germany. The type species is Anarosaurus pumilio.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Anarosaurus swam and what it ate, because its skeleton is incomplete and some fossils were lost.1

Where the facts come from

Anarosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Anarosaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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