Dinosaurs starting with letter Z
As we add the information to the dinosaur name we will link to it (in red)
Although technically all true dinosaurs were terrestrial animals we are including the marine based creatures and the ancestors.
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Try our A - Z of Dinosaur Pronunciations and Name Meanings
Zalmoxes - Cretaceous, Europe, 13-15m (7 - 10 ft) long.
Zalmoxes (named after the Dacian deity, Zalmoxis) was a genus of herbivorous dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous. It is classified as a rhabdodontid iguanodont. The type species is Z. robustus;[1] another is described as Z. shqiperorum. Both species were found in Romania. Z. robustus was smaller, 2 to 3 meters long (7 to 10 ft). Z. shqiperorum was 4 to 4.5 meters long (13 to 15 ft). Additional material is known from Austria, formerly described as Mochlodon suessi.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1. Weishampel, D. B., C.-M. Jianu, Z. Csiki, and D. B. Norman. (2003). "Osteology and phylogeny of Zalmoxes (n.g.), an unusual Euornithopod dinosaur from the latest Cretaceous of Romania". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 1(2): 65–123.
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Zanabazar - Late Cretaceous
Zanabazar is a genus of troodontid dinosaur, which lived during the Late Cretaceous period in Mongolia.
Fossils of this theropod have been found in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia. Originally classified as a new species of the genus Saurornithoides by Rinchen Barsbold in 1974, based on a small specimen thought to be more closely related to S. mongoliensis than to other troodonts, a 2009 review of the genus found that the support for this idea was lacking. Mark Norell and colleagues re-classified the species in the new genus Zanabazar, which they named in honor of Zanabazar, the first spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism in Outer Mongolia.[1]
Zanabazar is the largest known Asian troodontid, with a skull length of 272mm (10.7 inches). It is significantly larger than all other known troodontids except Troodon.[1]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
1. Norell, M.A.; Makovicky, P.J., Bever, G.S., Balanoff, A.M., Clark, J.M., Barsbold, R. and Rowe, T. (2009). "A Review of the Mongolian Cretaceous Dinosaur Saurornithoides (Troodontidae: Theropoda)". American Museum Novitates 3654: 63.
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Zuniceratops - Late Cretaceous, New mexico, 3-3.5m (10-11ft) long.
Zuniceratops ('Zuni-horned face') was a ceratopsian dinosaur from the mid Turonian of the Late Cretaceous Period of what is now New Mexico, United States. It lived about 10 million years earlier than the more familiar horned Ceratopsidae and provides an important window on their ancestry.
Zuniceratops appears to have been roughly 3 to 3.5 meters long (10-11 ft) and three feet (one meter) tall at the hips. It probably weighed 100 to 150 kilograms (200 to 250 lb). The frill behind its head was fenestrated but lacking epoccipitals. It is the earliest-known ceratopsian to have eyebrow horns and the oldest-known ceratopsian from North America. This set of horns is thought to have grown much larger with age.
Zuniceratops was discovered in 1996, by 8 year old Christopher James Wolfe, son of paleontologist Douglas G. Wolfe, in the Moreno Hill Formation in west-central New Mexico. One skull and the bones from several individuals have been found. More recently, one bone, believed to be a squamosal, has since been found to be an ischium of a Nothronychus.
Classification
Zuniceratops is an example of the evolutionary transition between early ceratopsians and the later, larger ceratopsids that had very large horns and frills. This supports the theory that the lineage of ceratopsian dinosaurs may have been North American in origin.
Although the first specimen discovered had single-rooted teeth (unusual for ceratopsians), later fossils had double-rooted teeth. This is evidence that the teeth became double-rooted with age. Zuniceratops was a herbivore like other ceratopsians and was probably a herd animal as well.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Zupaysaurus - Late Triassic to Hettangian stage of the Early Jurassic, Argentina, 4m (13ft) long.
Zupaysaurus (devil lizard") is a genus of early theropod dinosaur living during the Rhaetian stage of the Late Triassic to Hettangian stage of the Early Jurassic of what is now Argentina. Although a full skeleton has not yet been discovered, Zupaysaurus can be considered a bipedal predator, up to 4 meters (13 ft) long. It may have had two parallel crests running the length of its snout.
Zupaysaurus was a medium-sized theropod. An adult skull measured approximately 45 centimeters (18 in) in length, indicating a body length of approximately 4 meters (13 ft) from snout to tail tip. Like all known theropods, Zupaysaurus walked only on its hindlegs, leaving the forelimbs free to grasp its prey. A small gap separated the teeth of the premaxillary and maxillary bones of the upper jaw, and the astragalus and calcaneum bones of the ankle were fused together, as seen in many early theropods.[1]
As originally described, the skull bore two thin parallel crests on top of the skull, similar to other theropods like Dilophosaurus and Megapnosaurus (Syntarsus) kayentakatae. These crests were allegedly formed by the nasal bones solely, unlike those of many other theropods which also incorporated the lacrimal. Crests on the skull were pervasive among theropods and may have been used for communicative purposes such as species or gender recognition.[2] However, more recent analysis of the skull has cast doubt on the presence of these crests in Zupaysaurus. An unpublished abstract presented at a recent conference indicated the structures initially identified as crests were in fact the lacrimal bones displaced upwards during the process of fossilization.[3]