🦕Dino Files Entry #1

Welcome to Dino Files! I'm going to little information sheets of dinosaurs in alphabetical order. Today, I'm going over my favorite dinosaur, the Aardonyx!

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Origins:

Aardonyx means earthclaw (aard meaning earth and onyx meaning claw) This dinosaur was unearthed from the Early Jurassic Elliot formation in South Africa (2009). The species name, celestae, comes from one of the team members who worked on prepping the fossils. The fossils found belonged to two juvenile individuals. 

reconstruction of the skull

Classification & Morphology

The Aardonyx is classified as a basal sauropodomorph. Sauropodomorphs are a group of long necked, herbivorous dinosaurs. Basal means that the species is more primitive and exists closer to the root in the phylogenic tree. Aardonyx is also grouped as a prosauropod, which are non-sauropod sauropodomorphs. Prosauropods are thought to be the predecessors to the giant sauropods we usually think of, but its good to keep in mind that prosauropods existed alongside other sauropods. So while Aardonyx didn't come before sauropods, it kept primitive traits that would later lead to sauropods. 

Aardonyx was bipedal, which means it walked on two legs, but it's believed to have been able to switch to quadrupedal locomotion. The jaw shape of Aardonyx showed that it leaned more towards bulk browsing (eating in large quantities.) The way the forelimbs were structured limited the amount of pronation (rotating the hand.) This is also seen in sauropods- their arms are locked in position to hold their massive weight, as most of the weight is carried in the forearms. In conclusion, the Aardonyx has a lot of transitional features! 

My Aardonyx OC, Sasquatch, drawn by me!

Because the only fossils found weren't full grown, we aren't sure exactly how large the Aardonyx was, but a good estimate is about 5-6 feet at the hip and 20 feet long. 

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Okay!! I had fun writing this, and I look forward to making the next entry! I can't guarantee that any of this information is accurate, as there isn't a whole lot out there on Aardonyx. Actually, many of the dinosaur's ill be discussing wont have much information to go off of, so I'm working with what I can.

-dirt