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Description
Scientific name: Scelidosaurus harrisonii
Diet: low-growing plants (at the Zoo they eat hay)
Projected natural lifespan: 12 years
Length: 4 meters (~13 feet)
Weight: 250 kilograms (~551 pounds)
Locality: Dorset, England (Blue Lias), 196.5 Ma (Early Jurassic Sinemurian)
Exhibit: Dinosaur's Beginnings

About:
Scelidosaurus was an armored dinosaur. Though it looks like an ankylosaur, it wasn't one, and was much older than the first definitive ankylosaur fossils found so far. It was instead a more basal armored dinosaur.

Description and behavior:
As a basal armored dinosaur, Scelidosaurus doesn't show all of the traits seen in their later relatives, the ankylosaurs and stegosaurs. For example, it appears to have been primarily herbivorous; later armored dinosaurs (scientifically called thyreophorans), especially ankylosaurs, appear to have been more omnivorous. They also lived in herds, while later thyreophorans were mostly solitary. Their legs also appear to be longer, allowing for a relatively faster running speed that later members. Strangely, they are also capable of bipedal locomotion, though only when running away from predators. They appear to be quite proficient at this, especially as they appear to be a transitional form between earlier, bipedal thyreophorans (such as Scutellosaurus) and later, quadrupedal ones. Most strangely, they also appear to be more heavily-armored than some later thyreophorans, with over 460 individual osteoderms, 230 on each side of the body. This is more than any true ankylosaur, but they are so light that they were still able to move fast on both two or four legs.

At the Zoo:
We house nine Scelidosaurus. They represent ornithischians in the Dinosaur's Beginnings exhibit.

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The behavior is inspired by deer, cows, primates and armadillos.

The skeletal I used belongs to DrScottHartman .

The mass estimate comes from a deviation by Green-Mamba .

Description
Scientific name: Scelidosaurus harrisonii
Diet: low-growing plants (at the Zoo they eat hay)
Projected natural lifespan: 12 years
Length: 4 meters (~13 feet)
Weight: 250 kilograms (~551 pounds)
Locality: Dorset, England (Blue Lias), 196.5 Ma (Early Jurassic Sinemurian)
Exhibit: Dinosaur's Beginnings

About:
Scelidosaurus was an armored dinosaur. Though it looks like an ankylosaur, it wasn't one, and was much older than the first definitive ankylosaur fossils found so far. It was instead a more basal armored dinosaur.

Description and behavior:
As a basal armored dinosaur, Scelidosaurus doesn't show all of the traits seen in their later relatives, the ankylosaurs and stegosaurs. For example, it appears to have been primarily herbivorous; later armored dinosaurs (scientifically called thyreophorans), especially ankylosaurs, appear to have been more omnivorous. They also lived in herds, while later thyreophorans were mostly solitary. Their legs also appear to be longer, allowing for a relatively faster running speed that later members. Strangely, they are also capable of bipedal locomotion, though only when running away from predators. They appear to be quite proficient at this, especially as they appear to be a transitional form between earlier, bipedal thyreophorans (such as Scutellosaurus) and later, quadrupedal ones. Most strangely, they also appear to be more heavily-armored than some later thyreophorans, with over 460 individual osteoderms, 230 on each side of the body. This is more than any true ankylosaur, but they are so light that they were still able to move fast on both two or four legs.

At the Zoo:
We house nine Scelidosaurus. They represent ornithischians in the Dinosaur's Beginnings exhibit.

----

The behavior is inspired by deer, cows, primates and armadillos.

The skeletal I used belongs to DrScottHartman .

The mass estimate comes from a deviation by Green-Mamba .