Tazoudasaurus

Tazoudasaurus was a primitive sauropod that browsed the scrublands and floodplains of Early Jurassic Morocco. Stretching around nine to eleven metres from snout to tail and weighing around four tonnes, it was relatively modest in size compared with its gargantuan Late Jurassic descendants, being roughly comparable in mass to a modern hippopotamus. The fossil material, discovered in the High Atlas Mountains near the village of Tazouda, includes partial adult and juvenile skeletons. Tazoudasaurus retains an intriguing mix of ancestral and derived features, sporting slender spatulate teeth adapted for stripping foliage alongside primitive foot structures that still possessed spreading toes. Living alongside the predatory ceratosaur Berberosaurus, Tazoudasaurus offers invaluable evidence about the initial adaptive radiation of eusauropods as they transitioned from small, bipedal ancestors into the colossal, four-legged herbivores that dominated terrestrial ecosystems for the remainder of the Mesozoic Era.

It is one of the most complete Early Jurassic sauropods known from the African continent.

Where and when

Tazoudasaurus lived in the Early Jurassic, from 184.2 to 178 million years ago (Pliensbachian-Toarcian age). Its remains come from Morocco, in the Azilal Formation.

The numbers

Length 10 m (estimates run from 9 to 11 m). Mass about 3.7 t. Hip height about 2.5 m. That is 5.9 human-lengths, or 0.89 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, first ma, last ma, hip height.

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