Kingdom Animalia Clade Dinosauria Family †Proceratosauridae Rank Species | Class Reptilia Suborder Theropoda Phylum Chordata Order Saurischia | |
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Genus †Juratyrant
Brusatte & Benson, 2013 Similar Stokesosaurus, Aviatyrannis, Sinotyrannus, Kileskus, Bagaraatan | ||
Juratyrant (meaning "Jurassic tyrant") is a tyrannosauroid dinosaur genus from the late Jurassic period (early Tithonian age) of England. The genus contains a single species, J. langhami.
Contents
Juratyrant dinosaur of the day
Discovery
The species is known from a single specimen consisting of an "associated partial skeleton represented by a complete pelvis" as well as a partially complete leg, and neck, back, and tail vertebrae. This skeleton was discovered in 1984 in Dorset. The specimen was mentioned in several papers, but was not formally described until 2008. The species was named in honor of commercial fossil collector Peter Langham, who uncovered the specimen. The specimen was discovered in strata of the Kimmeridge Clay dating from the Tithonian, the final stage of the Late Jurassic, and belonging to the Pectinatites pectinatus ammonite zone, indicating the fossil is between 149.3 and 149 million years old.
Classification
The species was originally assigned to the genus Stokesosaurus, as Stokesosaurus langhami, by Roger Benson in 2008. However, later studies showed that it was not necessarily a close relative of Stokesosaurus clevelandi, the type species of that genus. It was formally re-classified in its own genus, Juratyrant, by Benson and Stephen Brusatte in 2013.
Below is a cladogram placing Juratyrant as a sister taxon to Stokesosaurus inside Proceratosauridae. It was published by Loewen et al. in 2013.
