Dino card No. 0105 of 2,027

Anchisaurus

Say it: AN-kih-SORE-us

Name means: “near lizard”1

Ate: PlantsLong-necksEarly Jurassic

Anchisaurus was a small, long-necked dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic. It could walk on two legs or all fours and was one of the smallest relatives of the giant sauropods.2

Lived

201 to 193 million years ago3

Early Jurassic

Fossils found in

Connecticut and Massachusetts, USA3

Food

Plants1 2

Length

2 to 3 m2

estimate based on partial skeletons

Weight

20 kg to 30 kg1

Height

0.5 to 0.8 m2

at the hips

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 1.5 bicycles in a rowas long as 17 bananas end to endas heavy as 8 house catsas heavy as 6 watermelons

How big was Anchisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Anchisaurus is one of the smallest known sauropod relatives, weighing only about as much as a large dog.1

Its fossils were found in the Portland Formation, which is made of sandstone from ancient rivers and lakes.3

Anchisaurus lived between 201 and 193 million years ago, during the Early Jurassic.1

Some scientists think Anchisaurus could walk on two legs or on all fours, depending on what it was doing.2

Anchisaurus was once called Amphisaurus and Megadactylus before getting its current name.1

It is considered a basal sauropod, meaning it is an early ancestor of the huge long-necked dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus.2

AI-made picture of Anchisaurus — An AI-made picture of how Anchisaurus 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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Myth buster

Myth: Anchisaurus was a giant dinosaur like other sauropods.

Truth: Anchisaurus was actually very small, weighing only about 20 to 30 kilograms, much smaller than later giant sauropods.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Anchisaurus
Named by: Marsh 18853
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Massopoda3
Classification: Sauropodomorpha3
Age of the rocks: 201 to 193 million years (Hettangian / Sinemurian)3
Rock formations: Portland3
Countries: USA3
Fossil records: 5 in the Paleobiology Database3
Also known as: Amphisaurus, Megadactylus (older names now counted as the same animal)3
Discovery: Anchisaurus was first named by Edward Hitchcock in 1865 as Megadactylus, but that name was already used for another animal. Othniel Charles Marsh renamed it Anchisaurus in 1885.1
Still debated: Scientists debate whether Anchisaurus was a true sauropod or a prosauropod, and whether it ate only plants or also some meat.2

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Anchisaurus polyzelus (Hitchcock): The smallest known sauropod dinosaur and the evolution of gigantism among sauropodomorph dinosaurs (elischolar.library.yale.edu)
Anchisaurus 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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