Dino of the Week: Emausaurus

Type Species: Emausaurus ernsti

Classification: Dinosauria – Ornithischia – Thyreophora   

Time Period: Early Jurassic

Location: Europe (Germany)

Diet: Herbivore

Emausaurus is the only known thyreophoran from the Toarcian stage of the Early Jurassic. The remains discovered in Germany belonged to a juvenile whose length was estimated at eight feet and likely weighed 150 to 200 pounds. Adults (whose remains have not been found) may have reached as long as thirteen feet and weighed around 750 pounds. Emausaurus resembled the earlier Laurasian thyreophoran Scelidosaurus, and it was covered in bony armor – called osteoderms. It had at least one spike in its armor. Though infants and juveniles may have been capable of a bipedal stance (perhaps to reach higher foliage), adults were probably confined to a quadruped stance, and as such they were low browsers. The juvenile Emausaurus was recovered in an ancient seashore environment, maybe even a lagoon, and the same rock-beds show Toarcian fauna such as insects, bivalves, sea snails, ammonites, and fish. The remains of marine reptiles, crocodylomorphs, and at least two sauropods have been discovered in the rock-beds, as well.