Dino of the Week: Daemonosaurus

Type Species: Daemonosaurus chauliodus
Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Theropoda
Time Period: Late Triassic
Location: North America
Diet: Carnivore

Daemonosaurus lived during the Late Triassic of Mexico. It’s considered a basal theropod that lies outside the clade Neotheropoda; in other words, it was closely related to the family line that would survive into the Jurassic and diversify into the ceratosaurs and tetanurans, but it was part of the ‘old breed’ that wouldn’t make it past the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. Daemonosaurus had a short skull and long protruding teeth, making it vividly different than the slender-skulled theropods that dominated the Late Triassic. It may have reached up to five feet in length, but many paleontologists believe it was shorter than this. It lived in the area of Ghost Ranch among such Late Triassic citizens as the rhynchosaurs, archosaurs, pseudosuchians, and primitive crocodilians – not to mention Coelophysis.