Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 117, September 2014, pp. 1-33. | Page 14

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legs and a stiff tail, Elaphrosaurus would have easily sprinted from danger. It had
keen eyes and a quick brain. Its diet probably depended on where it lived. Near
the sea it might have grubbed around for shellfish or shoveled sand for tiny
creatures. Some lived far inland and others foraged among woods and forests.
Since it had no teeth, Elaphrosaurus could not have eaten meat (Wikipedia;
Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2006).

Etymology
The genus name Elaphrosaurus is derived from the Greek words elaphro (ελαφρός)
meaning "light" as in "light-weight", a reference to its slender frame and "sauros"
(σαυρος) meaning "lizard"; thus, "lightweight lizard". Elaphrosaurus was
described and named by the German paleontologist Werner Janensch* in 1920
and the type species is Elaphrosaurus bambergi (Wikipedia).

Description
Elaphrosaurus was long and slender, with a long neck. What is known about
Elaphrosaurus mostly comes from a single nearly complete skeleton and no skull
has been found. It was distinctive among theropods for being short-legged for its
length. Paul (1988) noted that this was the longest-trunked and shallowestchested theropod that he has examined. Elaphrosaurus was about 6.2 meters
(20 feet) long, 1.46 meter (5 feet) tall at the hip, and weighed about 210 kilograms
(463 pounds). The tibia (shin bone) of Elaphrosaurus, measured 608 mm was
considerably longer than its femur (thigh bone) that measured 520 mm, which
indicates that it could probably run very fast. Its long tail ended with a rare
downward bend which may be unrelated to taphonomy (Wikipedia).

Classification
Elaphrosaurus was first described as a coelurid. At the time, Coeluridae was a
wastebasket taxon for small theropods. Then, Elaphrosaurus was placed in the
family Ornithomimidae by Nopcsa (1928) because of its light frame and the fact
that its humerus is straight and slender. Upon closer examination its limbs
approximate those of Coelophysis. Barsbold, Maryanska and Osmolska (1990)
and other researchers classified it as an ornithomimid. More recent work by
Carrano and Sampson (2008) and Carrano et al. (2012) assign this genus to
Ceratosauria. It is now believed that Limusaurus is its closest relative (Wikipedia).
* Werner Janensch was a German paleontologist and museum curator (the Natural
History Museum of Berlin) who led an expedition (with Edwin Hennig) to the Tendaguru
Beds in Deutsch-Ostafrika, what is now Tanzania, Africa. That expedition found many
late Jurassic period dinosaurs, including some Brachiosaurus. Janensch named
Dicraeosaurus (1914) and Elaphrosaurus (1920).
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 117 – September 2014