Emausaurus
From EMAU, an acronym of Ernst Moritz Arndt University (Universität Greifswald, Germany, where the specimen was studied), + Greek sauros, 'lizard'; means 'EMAU lizard'
Emausaurus is a genus of thyreophoran or armored dinosaur from the Early Jurassic (Early Toarcian). Its fossils have been found in the Lehmhagen Member, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northern Germany. Emausaurus is the only known Toarcian thyreophoran, as well as the only dinosaur from the zone of the same age with a formal name.
Diagnosis
- Broad skull proportions, width exceeding 50% of skull length; five premaxillary teeth with narrow subparallel premaxillary snout and palate
- Buccal shelf on maxilla and dentary initiated at the 10th-11th tooth position
- Broad triangular palpebral (supraorbital), laterally strongly sculptured, articulating only with the prefrontal
- W-shaped contact of jugal and quadratojugal, with caudal jugal processes overlapping quadratojugal both dorsally and ventrally
- Postorbital with prominent sharp dorsolateral crest continuing into squamosum
- Retroarticular process rounded and directed upward
Species
Emausaurus ernsti Haubold, 1990
Type species
Named for geologist Werner Ernst, who acquired the holotype specimen in 1963 from a loam pit near Grimmen, Germany.
- Holotype
- SGWG 85 , Institut für Geographie und Geologie, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität
- Material
- Nearly complete skull with some associated postcranial elements preserved in a siderite concretion; ~51 identifiable elements including skull bones, lower jaw, ribs, vertebrae, chevrons, hand/foot bones, and osteoderms
- Horizon
- Lehmhagen Member, Posidonia Shale Formation, Toarcian, Early Jurassic , 184.2–174.7 million years ago
- Locality
- Grimmen clay pit, Klein Lehmhagen, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany Haubold (1990) placed the skull in a siderite concretion of the semicelatum Subzone and named no unit for it, and later work called the beds unnamed. Ansorge and colleagues (2025) erected the Lehmhagen Member for that interval, naming this specimen among its material and putting its type section in the northern part of the same pit.
References
- Haubold, H. (1990). Ein neuer Dinosaurier (Ornithischia, Thyreophora) aus dem unteren Jura des nördlichen Mitteleuropa [A New Dinosaur (Ornithischia, Thyreophora) from the Lower Jurassic of Northern Central Europe]. Revue de Paléobiologie 9(1): 149-177. haubold1990a
-
Paul, G. S. (2024). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (3rd ed.). Princeton University Press.
Source of the appearance features.
paul2024a -
Ansorge, J.; Franz, M.; Götz, A. E.; Obst, K.; Reich, M.; Ruebsam, W.; Schwark, L. (2025). Stratigraphy and palaeoecology of the Toarcian in NE Germany: organo-detrital and detrital sedimentation in response to the productivity of the planktic ecosystem. PalZ 100(2): 259-335. Springer. doi:10.1007/s12542-025-00718-z
Erects the Lehmhagen Member of the Posidonia Shale Formation for the semicelatum Subzone interval that yielded this specimen, with its type section in the northern part of the Grimmen clay pit.
ansorge2025a