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Dinosaur Home  A-Z Dinosaurs List Saltopus Dinosaur
Saltopus
Saltopus elginensis was a very little bipedal reptile, roughly 23 inches (60 centimeters) long, discovered in Scotland. It was a late Triassic carnivore. almost certainly the size of a small cat, with hollow bones like those of a bird, it may have weighed in at approximately two pounds (one kilogram), and had five-fingered hands and a long head with dozens of sharp teeth. None of this can be recognized for certain, as Saltopus is known only from very poor fabric (mostly hind limb fragments). |
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As small as it was, its carnivorous diet must have consisted first and
foremost of scavenged carcasses or insects. It has been variously recognized
as a saurischian (lizard-hipped) dinosaur; a theropod (a fast-moving bipedal
carnivore with clawed digits and hands on the forelimbs); and a close
family member of the Herrerasaurus of the Herrerasauria infraorder, but
its taxonomy is in argument because only fragmentary remains have been
recovered. It may also have been a lagosuchid (a primitive reptile from
which the dinosaurs arose) or an ornithosuchian (closely connected cousins
of dinosaurs) instead of a true dinosaur. It has also been optional that
the supposed Saltopus remains may, in fact, be incomplete remains of some
already-identified animal.
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