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Telmatosaurus

By , About.com Guide

telmatosaurus

Telmatosaurus (Wikimedia Commons)

Name:

Telmatosaurus (Greek for "marsh lizard"); pronounced tel-MAT-oh-SORE-us

Habitat:

Woodlands of Europe

Historical Period:

Late Cretaceous (70-65 million years ago)

Size and Weight:

About 15 feet long and 1,000-2,000 pounds

Diet:

Plants

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Small size; Iguanodon-like appearance

About Telmatosaurus:

The relatively obscure Telmatosaurus is important for two reasons: first, it's one of the few hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs, known to have lived in central Europe (most species roamed the woodlands of North America and Asia), and second, its relatively simple body plan bears a distinct resemblance to the iguanodonts, a family of ornithopod dinosaurs (hadrosaurs are technically included under the ornithopod umbrella) typified by Iguanodon.

What's paradoxical about the seemingly less-evolved Telmatosaurus is that it lived during the end stages of the Cretaceous period, shortly before the mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. The probable explanation for this is that this genus occupied one of the marshy islands that dotted central Europe tens of millions of years ago, and so was "out of step" with general dinosaur evolutionary trends.

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