sauro-, saur-, -saurus, -saurid, -saur, -sauria, -saurian

Named “Case’s lizard” from Late Triassic Crosby County, Texas. Named in honor of Ermine Cowles Case (1871-1953), an American vertebrate paleontologist. Named by Adrian Paul Hunt, Frederic Augustus Lucas (1852-1929), Andrew Heckert, Robert M. Sullivan, and Martin Lockley (University of Colorado-Denver geologist) in 1998.

Named “??? lizard” from Upper Jurassic of the Colorado Plateau. Named by U. S. paleontologist James A. Jensen in 1988.

A “sharp-point (spur) lizard” from Late Cretaceous Alberta, Canada. Named by Canadian paleontologist Lawrence M. Lambe in 1904.

A family of big flesh-eating dinosaurs with a horn above the nose; therefore, “horn lizard”.

A “horned lizard” from Late Jurassic North America (Colorado and Utah) and East Africa (Tanzania). Named by Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) in 1884.

A “thunderbolt lizard” found in the Lake Waco Formation (Cenomanian) of Texas. Named by Jules Thurmond in 1968.

A “nothosaur”, a reptile with flipper-like limbs that lived both on land and in the water. It lived during the Middle Triassic period. Fossils have been found in Europe. It was not a dinosaur.

These “whale lizards” got their name from the discovery in central England in 1809 of great bones thought to have belonged to a huge aquatic beast. Believed to have existed from the Jurassic into the Cretaceous periods.

A “whale-like lizard” from Middle to Late Jurassic southern England and in Switzerland. Named by German paleontologist Friedrich von Huene in 1927.

A “whale (or sea monster) lizard” from Middle to Late Jurassic western Europe (England) and North Africa (Morocco). Named by British anatomist Sir Richard Owen in 1841.

Early lizard-like reptiles that lived in water. (Subclass Diapsida, Order Choristodera).

A “long-jawed early reptile”, a Champsosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period through the Eocene period. It was not a dinosaur.

Meaning “Chaoyang lizard” from Middle Jurassic Liaoning Province, China. Named by Zijin Zhao in 1983.

Formerly known as Proterosuchus, is the earliest-known Proteroschian, a very primitive thecodont that lived during the Early Triassic period. Considered an ancestor of the dinosaurs. Fossils have been found in China and South Africa.

Meaning “wide-opening (cleft, space) lizard” from Late Cretaceous Alberta, Canada; and New Mexico. Named in 1914, this creature was previously known as Protosaurus. Named by Canadian fossil hunter Lawrence M. Lambe in 1914.