Lesothosaurus Characteristics

Lesothosaurus was a small, lightly built dinosaur. Its elongated body and tail only measured 3.3 feet (1 metre) in length and it weighed 3 kilograms (8 pounds). It had a small, flat skull, set on a flexible neck, with large eye sockets and large jaw cavity. Its snout was short and pointed and may have ended in a beak. It had sharp, pointed front teeth and serrated cheek teeth, but its lower jaw ended in toothless bone. The teeth were well suited for chewing tough plant material.

Lesothosaurus was a bipedal dinosaur who was a very fast, agile runner. The hind limbs of Lesothosaurus were much longer than the fore limbs, which were quite short with small grasping hands. The hands had 4 well developed fingers and a fifth smaller finger. There was 4 clawed toes on each foot which enabled this lightweight dinosaur to outrun most of its predators. The distinctive femur (thigh bone) had a unique femoral head not seen in other dinosaurs. Lesothosaurus would have resembled a modern lizard running on 2 legs.

Lesothosaurus was an ornithopod, whose intelligence (as measured by its relative brain to body weight, or EQ) was midway among the dinosaurs.

Lesothosaurus was a herbivore and ate tough plant material to sustain itself.

Lesothosaurus likely died out by the mid-Jurassic, however, later ornithischians thrived for some 150 million years until the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

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Remains of Lesothosaurus have been collected from the Upper Elliot Formation, dating it to the Hettangian - Sinemurian portions of the Early Jurassic. Two Lesothosaurus fossils were found together in Lesotho, South Africa. A lot of extra, ground-down teeth were found in the area. The 2 were found curled up and paleontologists think that they may have died while hibernating underground to escape the hottest months of the year. The extra teeth may have been shed while hibernating.

Lesothosaurus was named by paleontologist Peter Galton in 1978.