Ouranosaurus

Ouranosaurus was a sail-backed, plant-eating, iguanodontid dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous period. It was about 24 feet (7 m) long and may have weighed about 4 tons.

Ouranosaurus
Temporal range: Lower Cretaceous
Fossil
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Sauropsida
Superorder:
Dinosauria
Order:
Ornithischia
Suborder:
Ornithopoda
Infraorder:
Iguanodontia
Family:
Iguanodontidae
Genus:
Ouranosaurus
Binomial name
Ouranosaurus nigeriensis
Taquet, 1976

Two almost complete Ouranosaurus fossils were found in the southern Sahara Desert, in northeast Niger, in 1966. Spinosaurus, a large, sail-backed meat-eater, was one of its contemporaries in the hot, Cretaceous environment of north Africa. Ouranosaurus was named by the French paleontologist Phillippe Taquet in 1976.


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