Describer

Marsh, 1884

Time

Jurassic Late Kimmeridgian Tithonian

Classification

Saurischia Theropoda Ceratosauria

Diet

Carnivore

Fossilsite

Morrison Formation, Garden Park Quarry No. 1, near Canyon City, Colorado, Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry, Utah, US; Mtwara, Tanzania

Fall Under

Ceratosaurus

Length

6 meter

Info

Typespecies - Skull

Ceratosaurus (Marsh, 1884) > Ceratosaurus nasicornis (Marsh, 1884) Ceratosaurus ingens (Janensch, 1920) = Megalosaurus ingens (1) (Janensch, 1920)

Ceratosaurus (Marsh, 1884) > Ceratosaurus willisobrienorum (Welles, Powell & Pickering, vide Pickering, 1995) = Ceratosaurus dentisulcatus (Madsen & Welles, 2000) = Ceratosaurus magnicornis (Madsen & Welles, 2000)

Ceratosaurus (Marsh, 1884) > Ceratosaurus sp. (Mateus, Walen and Antunes 2006)

5 individuals, including nearly complete adult skeleton. Ceratosaurus nasicornis is diagnosed by its median nasal \\\\\\\"horn\\\\\\\" fusion between metatarsals II-IV, and epaxial osteoderms (Gilmore, 1920). A nasal horn also occurs in Proceratosaurus bradleyi, but the latter taxon bears a large, circular maxillary fenestra and an antorbital maxillary tooth row, diagnostic characters of Tetanurae (Gauthier, 1986), and it lacks the diagnostic characters of Ceratosauria.
Holotype: USNM 4735 Collected by M.P. Felch in Colorado, 1883. It was formally named by Marsh in the American Journal of Science, Volume 27, page 330, in 1884. A more complete description, with many figures, was published by C.W. Gilmore in 1920 in Bulletin 110 of the U.S. National Museum.