NAME

Meaning - Torvosaurus means “savage lizard”
Pronounced - TOR-vo-SAWR-us
Named By - Peter M. Galton and James A. Jensen
When Named - 1979
DIET

Carnivore (meat-eater); Torvosaurus ate large plant-eating dinosaurs like stegosaurs and sauropods.
SIZE

Length - 33-40 ft (10-12 m) long
Height - 8 ft (2.5 m) tall at the hips
Weight - 3 tons
WHEN IT LIVED

Late Jurassic period, about 144 million years ago
WHERE IT LIVED

Fossils have been found in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, USA, North America.
FOSSILS

Torvosaurus was found by Jim Jensen and Kenneth Stadtman in 1972, in the Dry Mesa quarry in western Colorado.
CLASSIFICATION
  • Kingdom Animalia (animals)
  • Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
  • Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
  • Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
  • Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
  • Family Megalosauridae
  • Genus Torvosaurus
  • Species T. tanneri (type species named by Galton and Jensen, 1979)
INTERESTING FACTS

Torvosaurus walked on two powerful legs. It had strong, short arms; the forearms were about half the length of the upper arms. It had huge thumb claws and large, sharp teeth.