Guide Note

The Ammosaurus is a dinosaur of which little is known, despite it being one of the earliest discovered during the boom of paleontology in the late 19th Century.

Fast Facts

1. Pronounced: AM-uh-SAW-rus
2. Name Means: "Sand Lizard"
3. Naming Credit: Othniel Charles Marsh (1889)
4. Range: North America
5. Classification:
   1. Order: Saurischia
   2. Family: Anchisauridae
   3. Genus: Ammosaurus
   4. Type Species: Ammosaurus major
6. Period: Early Jurassic
7. Length: Up to 15 feet
8. Height: Up to 6 feet
9. Weight: Up to 300 pounds
10. Known through fragmented remains

Ammosaurus appears to be one of the Sauropodomorpha, the dinosaurs that began as bipedal omnivores and eventually evolved into the Sauropods, those gigantic, long-necked quadropedal herbivores of the middle Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods.