Dysalotosaurus

Dysalotosaurus Temporal range: Late Jurassic, 152–151 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
D. lettowvorbecki skeleton in Berlin
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Clade:	Dinosauria
Order:	†Ornithischia
Suborder:	†Ornithopoda
Family:	†Dryosauridae
Genus:	†Dysalotosaurus Virchow, 1919
Species:	†D. lettowvorbecki
Binomial name
Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki Virchow, 1919

Dysalotosaurus (meaning 'uncatchable lizard') is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It was a dryosaurid iguanodontian, and its fossils have been found in late Kimmeridgian age-rocks (Late Jurassic) of the Tendaguru Formation, Tanzania. The type species of Dysalotosaurus is D. lettowvorbecki. D lettowvorbecki was named by Rudolf Virchow in 1919 after the Imperial German Army Officer, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. It has long been referred to approximate contemporary Dryosaurus but newer studies reject this synonymy.^[1][2]

Paleobiology

Side view of skeleton

Dysalotosaurus was a precocial dinosaur, which experienced sexual maturity at ten years, had an indeterminate growth pattern, and maximum growth rates comparable to a large kangaroo.^[3]

Palaeopathology

In 2011 paleontologists Florian Witzmann and Oliver Hampe from the Museum für Naturkunde and colleagues discovered that deformations of some Dysalotosaurus bones were likely caused by a viral infection similar to Paget's disease of bone. This is the oldest evidence of viral infection known to science.^[4]

References