Prorotodactylus the Proto-dinosaurThe

Prorotodactylus

(New drawing so it will be at the bottom of the Mesozoic section of the list that is under the Paleontology button that you can click on at the top of the page.  

All printable drawings are found on the All Printable button up top too.  

Prorotodactylus was an early reptile that lived in the early Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era.  It was a proto-dinosaur or a dinosauruomorph.  It is quite likely the ancestor of the dinosaurs.  It was found in the Holy Cross Mountains of Poland.  Many tracks attributed to this small reptile have been found there.  A Prorotodactylus skeleton has never been found.  The footprints show that it had five toes but the outer toes were beginning to evolve away.  The outer toes were reduced.  So Prorotodactylus was on its way to having three fingered hands and toes. . . like Allosaurus.

The tracks show that Prorotodactylus walked on all fours and since the back feet often stepped on the front foot tracks the back legs appear to have been longer than the front legs.  This ancestor to the dinosaurs was about the size of a small house cat.  It was about 2 feet or 61 cm long.  It most likely weighed around 2-3 lbs. or 1-1.5 kilos.  It appears to be a predator of small early vertebrates like lizards, and possibly small ancestors to our modern mammals.  It probably ate insects as well.

It possibly was an omnivore too.  In recent finds in Switzerland they found that pollen from flowering plants dates way back to this time period.  This is the Triassic Period.  Previously it was thought that the flowering plants did not appear until around the T. rex time in the Late Cretaceous Period.  The ERA of dinosaurs include the following Periods:  Triassic Period. . . when this animal lived,  Jurassic Period. . . when Allosaurus lived,   and the Cretaceous Period. . . when T. rex lived. 

Allosaurus by a River

(Notice the three roes and tree fingers on each hand and foot.)

This is an older drawing from a previous post so it is located further up the list 

when you click on the Paleontology button at the top of the page.  

T. rex before the Meteorite Strike

(Notice that in T. rex there are three toes, but it evolved out of one of the three finger on each hand.)

This is also an older drawing.  These proto-feathers on the T. rex would not have been present on  Prorotodactylus.  Feathers evolved much later than the Triassic Period.  But if you think about it, Prorotodactylus is most likely the ancestor of modern birds.