Dravidosaurus

Dravida lizard

• Dravida · Sanskrit/Latin · relating to the Dravidian people / southern India
• saurus · Greek · lizard

The name combines "Dravida," a Sanskrit term referring to the Dravidian-speaking peoples and lands of southern India, with the Greek word "sauros" meaning lizard. It was named in reference to the region of India where the fossils were discovered — the Trichinopoly (Tiruchirappalli) district of Tamil Nadu, a heartland of Dravidian culture. The name thus means "Dravida lizard" or "lizard from Dravidian India."

Named by

Yadagiri and Ayyasami

Year named

1979

Period

Late Cretaceous

Stage

Coniacian

Found in

Trichinopoly Formation, Tamil Nadu, India

Originally described as a stegosaur — which would make it the last-known stegosaur and the only one from the Late Cretaceous — but subsequent studies have cast serious doubt on this identification. The fragmentary material (partial skull, some postcranial elements) has been reinterpreted by several researchers as belonging to a plesiosaur, not a dinosaur at all. It is now widely regarded as a nomen dubium, and the stegosaur assignment is considered almost certainly erroneous. If the plesiosaur reinterpretation is correct, it is not a dinosaur.