THAROSAURUS
a plant eating dicraeosaurid sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of India.
Pronunciation: THAR-oh-SOR-us
Meaning: Thar lizard
Author/s: Bajpai
et al. (
2023)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Rajasthan, India
Discovery Chart Position: #1100
Tharosaurus indicus
(Indian Thar Lizard)Etymology
Tharosaurus is derived from "thar" (for the Thar desert of western India where its fossils were first found) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).
The
species epithet,
indicus, means "Indian" in Latin.
Discovery
The remains of
Tharosaurus were discovered in the Fort Member of the Jaisalmer Formation at Jethwai village, Jaisalmer district, Rajasthan state, India, by staff from the GSI (Geological Survey of India) in 2018.
The
holotype, RWR-241 (A–K), includes partial vertebrae from the neck, back and tail, and a rib.
Estimations
Timeline:
Era: Mesozoic
Epoch: Middle Jurassic
Stage: Bathonian
Age range: 167 mya
Stats:
Est. max. length: ?
Est. max. hip height: ?
Est. max. weight: ?
Diet: Herbivore
References
• Bajpai S, Datta D, Pandey P, Ghosh T, Kumar K and Bhattacharya D 2023) "Fossils of the oldest diplodocoid dinosaur suggest India was a major centre for neosauropod radiation".
Scientific Reports, 13: 12680. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39759-2.
• Mannion PD and Moore AJ (2025) "Critical reappraisal of a putative dicraeosaurid sauropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic of Gondwana and a revised view of diplodocoid evolutionary relationships and biogeography".
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 23(1): 2550760.
DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2025.2550760.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
THAROSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
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