Sauro Words: Dinosaurs “Saurornithelestes” to “Szechuanosaurus”
Group "S"
A Greek element that is used in various forms to create hundreds of words that mean “lizard”: sauro-, saur-, -saurus, -saurid, -saur, -sauria, -saurian. Some authorities use sauro-, -saurus, et al. as a reference to a “serpent” or a “reptile”; but it is used especially with reference to “dinosaurs”.
Saurornithelestes:
A “lizard-bird robber” from Late Cretaceous southern Alberta, Canada. It was named by Canadian paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues in 1978.
Saurornithoides, Saurornithoidids:
A “bird-like lizard” from Late Cretaceous Mongolia. It was named by paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1924.
Saurosuchus:
A “dinosaur crocodile (or lizard crocodile)” from Late Triassic South America. It was named by Osvaldo A. Reig in 1959.
saury:
Known as Scomberesocidae, or skippers, they are typically active zooplankton feeders that commonly skip and jump at the surface in large schools.
Scanisaurus:
A “Scania lizard” from Late Cretaceous Northern Europe. This fossil was named to indicate a form found in the province of Scania, in the Baltic region of southern Sweden. Named by Persson in 1959.
Scelidosaurus:
A “limb (or rib or hind-leg) lizard” from Early Jurassic Lyme Regis, southern England, Arizona (USA), and Tibet. It was named by British anatomist Sir Richard Owen in 1868.
Scolosaurus:
This nomenclature (“spiny lizard”) is no longer recognized by scientists because they found that it described an animal that was previously given another name which is Eoplocephalus or Dyoploaurus. Named by Franz Baron Nopcsa in 1928.
Scutellosaurus:
A “small (little)-shield lizard” from Late Jurassic Arizona (southwestern USA). Named by Edwin Harris Colbert (born 1905) in 1981.
Secernosaurus:
A “separate (or severed, divided) lizard” from Late Cretaceous Argentina. It was found in Patagonia, Argentina, and therefore, it is said to be a fossil-form that is geographically separated from the North American, European, and Asian members of the family. Named by Michael K. Brett-Surman in 1979.
Seeleyosaurus:
“Seeley lizard” Early Jurassic Europe. Named in honor of Harry Govier Seeley (1839-1909), British vertebrate paleontologist. Named by White in 1940.
Segisaurus:
“Segi Canyon lizard” may be from Early Jurassic period and found in Segi Canyon (Navajo Sandstone), north-central Arizona. Named by Charles Lewis Camp in 1936.
Segnosaurus:
A “slow lizard” from Late Cretaceous southeast Mongolia. Named by Altangerel Perle in 1979.
Segnosaurids:
A family of “slow lizards”.
Seismosaurus:
An “earth-shaking (or earthquake) lizard” from Late Jurassic New Mexico, USA. Named by U. S. paleontologist David Gillette in 1991.
Sellosaurus:
A “saddle lizard” from Late Triassic Germany. It name was considered to be a Plateosaurus, but it is said that the saddle between the prezygopophyses and the neural spine is much wider and flatter than previously recognized. Named by German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1908.
Shamosaurus:
Translated as, “Shamo (desert) lizard” from Early Cretaceous Asia. The name refers to the Gobi desert in Mongolia, where it was discovered. Named by Russian paleontologist Tatjana Alekseevna Tumanova in 1983.
Shanshanosaurus:
“Shan-shan lizard” from Late Cretaceous China. It was found in Shan-shan, Turpan Basin, northwest China. Named by Chinese paleontologist Zhiming Dong in 1977.
Shantungosaurus:
“Shantung (or Shangdong) lizard” from Late Cretaceous Shangtung (Shangdong) Province, China. Named by Hu Chengzi (Hu Chengchih) in 1973.
Shanyangosaurus:
“Shanyung lizard” from Late Cretaceous China. Its name comes from Chinese Shanyang (shan, “mountain” plus yang, “south [of]” or “south of the mountain”. Named by Xue, Yihong Zhang, and Bi in 1996.
Shatungosaurus:
A “Shandong lizard” from Late Cretaceous China. It was named by paleontologist Hu Chengzi (Hu Chengchih) in 1973.
Shonisaurus:
An Ichthyosaur that lived during Late Triassic North America. It was not a dinosaur but another kind of extinct reptile.
Shunosaurus:
“Sichuan lizard” from Middle Jurissac China. Its name is based on Shu, an old name for the Sichuan region of China. Named by Chinese paleontologists Zhiming Dong, Shiwu Zhou, and Yihong Zhang in 1983.
Shuosaurus:
“Shu lizard” was dug up in Szechuan, China in 1979. Shu was the name of an old Chinese kingdom. It is estimated to have come from the Early-Middle Jurassic period.
Shuvosaurus:
“Shuvo’s lizard” from Late Triassic Texas. Its name was made to honor Sankar Chatterjee’s son, Shuvo, the one who discovered the toothless type skull during preparation of material from the Dockum Formation, Texas. Named by Indian paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee in 1993.
Siamosaurus:
A “Siamese lizard” from Early Cretaceous Thailand. Its name is based on “Siam”, an old name for Thailand where the fossil was found. Named by French paleontologist Eric (Erik) Buffetaut and Rucha Ingavat in 1986.
Sigilmassasaurus:
A “Sijilmassa lizard” from Middle Cretaceous Morocco. Its name is based on “Sigilmassa”, now “Sijilmassa”; an ancient city, once known for its wealth and power, now in ruins in the Tafilalt oasis region in southern Morocco where the fossil was discovered. Named by Canadian paleontologist Dr. Dale Alan Russell in 1996.
Siluosaurus:
A “silk-road lizard” from Early Cretaceous China. Its name comes from Clhinese Silu, “silk road”, the ancient trade route through China and Central Asia that carried Chinese silk and other goods to the Middle East and Europe. A 1992 Sino-Japanese Silk Road Expedition found the fossil as they were following the old Silk Road to Central Asia. Named by Chinese paleontologist Zhiming Dong in 1997.
Silvisaurus:
A “forest lizard” from Late Cretaceous Kansas, USA. Named by paleontologist J. G. Eaton in 1960.
Sinornithosaurus millenii: A “bird-like lizard” or “Chinese bird-like lizard” from a probable Early Cretaceous northeast China; and also from a Mesozoic fish-dinosaur-bird locality in the Yixian Formation of China. The species name comes from “Millennium”, in reference to the specimen’s discovery near the end of the twentieth century. Information comes from
Nature, 401, September 16, 1999, pp. 262-266. Named by Chinese paleiontologists Xing Xu, Xiao-Lin Wang, and Xiao-Chun Wu in 1999.
Sinopliosaurus:
A Chinese pliosaur (“more lizard”) from Late Jurassic Weiyuan, Sichuan Province, China. Named by Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhong-jian (also known as: Chung Chien Young) in 1944.
Sinosauropteryx:
A “Chinese dinosaur wing” from Early Cretaceous China. Its name is based on Greek “sinai” and Latin “sinae”, an oriental people, Chinese. This fossil was found in ancient lake sediments in Liaoning Province, northeastern China. Named by Chinese geologists Ji Qiang and Ji Shu’an in 1996.
Sinosaurus:
A “Chinese (eastern) lizard” from Late Triassic or Early Jurassic Yunan, southern China. Named by Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhong-jian (also known as: Chung ChienYoung) in 1948.
Sonorasaurus:
A “Sonora lizard” from Mid Cretaceous Sonora Desert, southern Arizona. It is now being investigated by researchers at the Sonoran Desert Museum, in Tucson, and was found in the Mid Cretaceous Turney Ranch Formation in Pima County, Arizona. It was discovered in 1994 by Richard Thompson, a University of Arizona student, as he was hiking in a remote southern Arizona canyon looking for petrified wood.
This dinosaur belongs to a family of long necked sauropods called brachiosaurs. Since it is a new kind of brachiosaur paleontologists were able to assign this fossil a new taxonomic name,
Sonorasaurus (from the Sonoran Desert)
thompsoni (
honoring Richard Thompson, the discoverer). The age of the sandstone in which it was found appears to be Mid Cretaceous, about 100 million years old, and it appears that
Sonorasaurus thompsoni may geologically be the youngest brachiosaur ever found. Named by Ratkevich in 1998.
—From information that was presented on the Internet by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
Soroaviosaurus:
“sister-avisaur” a reference to the sister-group relationship inferred for Avisaurus and Soroavisaurus, according to a cladistic analysis. From Late Cretaceous South America. Named by U. S. paleontologist Luis M. Chiappe in 1993.
Spinosaurids:
A large group of huge, flesh-eating dinosaurs that developed long spines jutting up from their vertebra. It is believed to have existed in the Cretaceous period. Named by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach in 1915.
Spinosaurus:
A “thorn (spine) lizard” from Late Cretaceous Niger and Egypt. Named by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach in 1915.
Spondylosaurus:
A “vertebra lizard” the name is based on a form found in Kimmeridge Clay of the Moscow Basin, Russia. Named by German paleontologist Jena Fischer in 1845.
Staurikosaurids:
A “cross lizard” from Late Triassic. Named for the Southern Cross star group, best seen in the Southern Hemisphere. The only genus yet described lived in Brazil and Argentina, South America. It was named by Edwin Harris Colbert (born 1905) in 1970.
Staurikosaurus:
A “cross (southern cross) lizard” from Middle or Late Triassic Santa Maria, southern Brazil. It was named for the constellation of the Southern Cross, which marks the Southen Hemisphere, including Brazil. Named by Colbert in 1970.
Stegosaurides:
“Stegosaur form (like)” was named from a few bones, now probably lost. From Late Cretaceous northern China. This creature was formerly known as Hypsirophus.
Stegosauria:
Stegosaurs that were quadruped, plant-eating, ornithischian dinosasurs. They lived from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous periods.
Stegosaurus:
A “roof” or “roofed (plated) lizard” from Late Jurassic Colorado, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming (USA). This creature was formerly called a Diracodon. Named by Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) in 1877.
Stenonychosaurus:
A “narrow-clawed lizard” from Late Cretaceous period and found in southern Alberta, Canada. This creature was previously known as
Polyodontosaurus. Named by U. S. fossil hunter Charles Mortram Sternberg (1885-1981) in 1932.
A dinosaur man-like model, called a “Dinosauroid” stands in an Ottawa museum. Some Canadian paleontologists theorize that this Stenonychosaurus could have given rise to such brainy descendants had dinosaurs endured instead of dying out.
Stephanosaurus:
This nomenclature (“crowned lizard”) is no longer recognized by scientists because they found that it described an animal that was previously given another name which is Lambeosaurus. Named by Lawrence M. Lambe in 1914.
Sthenarosaurus:
An “strong lizard” from Early Jurassic Europe. Named by U. S. paleontologist Alastair Watson in 1909.
Stokesosaurus:
“Stokes’ lizard” from Late Jurassic Utah, USA. It was named for American paleontologist William Lee Stokes. Named by U. S. paleontologist James H. Madsen in 1974.
Strenusaurus:
This nomenclature (“vigorous lizard”) is no longer recognized by scientists because they found that it described an animal that was previously given another name which is Riojasaurus. Named by Argentinian paleontologist José Bonaparte in 1969.
Streptosaurus:
“Stretham lizard” named for Stretham, near where the fossil was found in the Kimmeridge Clay of Cambridgeshire, England. Named by Tarlo [a pseudonym of Lambert Beverly Halstead, who sometimes signed his papers, “Halstead Tarlo”] in 1959.
Struthiosaurus:
An “ostrich lizard” from Late Cretaceous eastern Austria, Hungary, Romania, and southern France. This creature was formerly known as Hoplosaurus, Leipsanosaurus, Onychosaurus, Pleuropeltus, and Rhodanosaurus. Named by Emanuel Bunzel in 1870.
Styracosaurus:
A “spiked lizard” from Late Cretaceous Alberta, Canada and Montana, USA. Named by Canadian fossil hunter Lawrence M. Lambe in 1913.
Styxosaurus:
A “Hell Creek lizard” from Late Cretaceous North America. Its name comes for Styx, the mythical river in Hades, a reference to the type of locality at Hell Creek, Logan County, Kansas. Named by U. S. paleontologist Samuel Paul Welles in 1943.
Supersaurus:
A “super (above) lizard” from Late Jurassic western Colorado, USA. Named by U. S. paleontologist James A. Jensen in 1985.
Symphyrosaurus:
This nomenclature (“fused-roof lizard”) is no longer recognized by scientists because they found that it described an animal that was previously given another name which is Camptosaurus.
Syngonosaurus:
This nomenclature (“kindred lizard”) is no longer recognized by scientists because they found that it described an animal that was previously given another name which is Anoplosaurus or Acanthopholis. Named by Harry Govier Seeley in 1879.
Syrmosaurus:
This nomenclature (“crawling lizard”) is no longer recognized by scientists because they found that it described an animal that was previously given another name which is Pinacosaurus. Named by Yevgenii (or Evgeny) Alexandrovich Maleev in 1952.
Szechuanosaurus:
“Szechuan lizard” from Late Jurassic period and found in Szechuan (Sichuan) Province, China. Named by Chinese paleontologist Yang Zhong-jian (also known as: Chung Chien Young) in 1942.