Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 117, September 2014, pp. 1-33. | Page 20

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Paleoecology
Provenance and occurrence
The type specimen of Elaphrosaurus bambergi HMN Gr.S. 38-44 was recovered in
the Middle Dinosaur Member of the Tendaguru Formation in Tanzania. The
specimen was collected by Werner Janensch, I. Salim, H. Reck, and Parkinson in
1910 in gray, green, red, sandy marl that was deposited during the
Kimmeridgian stage of the Jurassic period, approximately 157 to 152 million
years ago. This specimen is housed in the collection of the Humboldt Museum
in Berlin, Germany (Wikipedia).
A related animal, perhaps th e same genus, was found in stratigraphic zones 2-4
of the Morrison Formation. Few theropod skeletons have been found, most
discoveries being fragments (Wikipedia).

Fauna and Habitat
Studies suggest that the paleoenvironment of the Tendaguru Formation was a
marginal marine environment with both non-marine faunal and floral content.
The Middle Dinosaur Member of the Tendaguru Formation has yielded the
sauropods Giraffatitan, Australodocus, Janenschia, Tornieria and Dicraeosaurus,
theropods similar to Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus, the carcharodontosaurid
Veterupristisaurus, the stegosaurid Kentrosaurus and the iguanodontian
Dysalotosaurus. Dinosaurs shared this paleoenvironment with pterosaurs like
Pterodactylus and Rhamphorhynchus, as well as with early mammals. Paul
(1988) noted that Elaphrosaurus bambergi was too small to prey on the sauropods
and stegosaurs present in its paleoenvironment, and instead, it likely hunted the
small and swift ornithopod herbivores (Wikipedia).

Ichnology
Dinosaur footprints from the Niger Republic and from Jerusalem were attributed
to Elaphrosaurus. This assignment is considered inconclusive (Wikipedia).

Ceratosauria
Ceratosaurs are members of a group of theropod dinosaurs defined as all
theropods sharing a more recent common ancestry with Ceratosaurus than with
birds. There is no agreed upon listing of species or diagnostic characters of
Ceratosauria, though they were less derived anatomically than the more
diverse Tetanurae. According to the latest and most accepted theory,
Ceratosauria includes the Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous theropods
Ceratosaurus, Elaphrosaurus, and Abelisaurus, found primarily (though not
Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin – Number 117 – September 2014