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Dactylosaurus

Say it: DAK-til-oh-SORE-us

Name means: “finger lizard”1

Ate: FishSea reptilesMiddle TriassicNot technically a dinosaur

Dactylosaurus was a tiny marine reptile that swam in warm, shallow seas during the Triassic Period. It had a long body, a small head, and paddle-like limbs for moving through the water. Even though it was small, it was one of the earliest pachypleurosaurs in Europe.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 ago3

Middle Triassic

Fossils found in

Poland and the Netherlands3 1

Food

Fish3

Length

0.5 m1

estimated

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 Dactylosaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Dactylosaurus was one of the smallest members of its family, Pachypleurosauridae, measuring only about 50 cm (1.6 ft) long.1

Its name comes from Greek words meaning 'finger lizard', because of its long, slender fingers.1

Dactylosaurus had 17 neck vertebrae and its skull had large, kidney-shaped openings behind the eyes.1

The first fossil of Dactylosaurus was a partial skeleton of a juvenile, and scientists originally thought it was a different species called D. schroederi.1

Dactylosaurus lived about 247 to 241 million years ago, during the Early and Middle Triassic.3

Its bones became hard (ossified) at a much smaller size than other pachypleurosaurs, which helped scientists identify it.2

Dactylosaurus fossils are often found in shelly limestone called Muschelkalk in Poland and the Netherlands.1

AI-made picture of Dactylosaurus — An AI-made picture of how Dactylosaurus 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: Dactylosaurus
Named by: Gürich 18843
Group: Sea reptiles
Family / clade: Pachypleurosauridae3
Classification: Sauropterygia3
Age of the rocks: 247 to 241 million years ()3
Rock formations: Vossenveld, Karchowice, Chorzow3
Countries: Poland, Netherlands3
Fossil records: 4 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Dactylosaurus was named by German paleontologist Georg Gürich in 1884, based on fossils from Upper Silesia (now Poland).3 1
Still debated: Scientists are still unsure about the exact diet of Dactylosaurus, since its teeth and jaw shape suggest it ate small prey, but direct evidence is missing.3

Where the facts come from

Dactylosaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
The pachypleurosaurid Dactylosaurus schroederi (Diapsida: Sauropterygia) (cdnsciencepub.com)
Dactylosaurus 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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