page_title: Dyrosaurus
section_title: History of discovery
hierarchical_section_title: Dyrosaurus / History of discovery
caption_attribution_description: Museo civico di storia naturale Milano
context_page_description: Dyrosaurus is a genus of extinct crocodylomorph that lived during the early Eocene. The name Dyrosaurus comes from sauros the Greek for lizard or reptile, and Dyr for Djebel Dyr mountain close to where the type species was discovered.
context_section_description: French paleontologist Auguste Pomel named the genus Dyrosaurus in 1894 for Djebel Dyr, a mountain near Tebessa in Algeria where its fossilized vertebrae were found in a phosphate mine. The first remains of Dyrosaurus were named Crocodilus phosphaticus by Thomas (1893) for Early Eocene crocodyliform remains from Gafsa, Tunisia. Pomel eventually synonymized the type species D. thevestensis with C. phosphaticus to form the new combination D. phosphaticus, making phosphaticus the epithet of the Dyrosaurus type species. In 1903, the family Dyrosauridae was named by Giuseppe de Stefano referring to the locality for the holotype was found in Djebel Dyr, Algeria.Thévenin (1911a, 1911b), with some better preserved material, recognized that Dyrosaurus phosphaticus was a Lower Eocene crocodyliform. Many dyrosaurid remains are known, but unfortunately they are often poorly preserved which makes it difficult for paleontologists to get a strong understanding of the family.
caption: Jaw and other fragments
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