• the meat-eaters Coelophysis (about 10 feet long), Syntarsus, and Segisaurus
• the omnivores Massopondylus and Anchisaurus
• the plant-eaters Scutellosaurus and Ammosaurus.

DIET
Dilophosaurus was a carnivore, a meat eater. It had loosely attached jaws which would have made killing animals with its teeth difficult. It must have killed with its clawed arms and legs, and/or scavenged carcasses.

LOCOMOTION
Dilophosaurus walked on two muscular legs and was a relatively fast runner, leaving bird-like footprints on land. Some of its fossilized footprints are only impressions of the claw-tips. This indicates that Dilophosaurus may have been walking in water at the time. Dilophosaurus' leg length was about about 1.65 m; it's stride length (distance between footprints) was about 2.13 m.

DISCOVERY OF FOSSILS
The first fossil Dilophosaurus skeleton was found in Arizona, USA, in the 1940's. Dilophosaurus was named in 1970 by Samuel P. Welles. There have been three Dilophosaurus fossils found in the USA, all found together in Arizona. They are now at the University of California's Museum of Paleontology at Berkeley, USA. Another specimen may have been found in China.

CLASSIFICATION
Dilophosaurus belonged to the:

• 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 Ceratosauria (also called Coelophysoidea - the most primitive theropod group, which includes Dilophosaurus and Segisaurus)
• Genus Dilophosaurus
• Species
  • D. wetherilli is the type species (named by Welles in 1954, but it was originally called Megalosaurus).

DILOPHOSAURUS ACTIVITIES AND LINKS
Dilophosaurus brief fact sheet or a printable version

Dilophosaurus Printout

K-3 Dilophosaurus Printout

A Dilophosaurus word hunt activity - For second and third graders.