page_title: Azendohsaurus
section_title: Feeding and diet
hierarchical_section_title: Azendohsaurus / Palaeobiology / Feeding and diet
caption_attribution_description: English: Closeup of the maxilla and implanted teeth of Azendohsaurus madagaskarensis in lateral (labial) view, specimen UA 8-29-97-160. Scale bar equals 5 mm, arrow indicates anterior direction. Modified from Ezcurra (2016).
context_page_description: Azendohsaurus is an extinct genus of herbivorous archosauromorph reptile from roughly the late Middle to early Late Triassic Period of Morocco and Madagascar. The type species, Azendohsaurus laaroussii, was described and named by Jean-Michel Dutuit in 1972 based on partial jaw fragments and some teeth from Morocco. A second species from Madagascar, A. madagaskarensis, was first described in 2010 by John J. Flynn and colleagues from a multitude of specimens representing almost the entire skeleton. The generic name "Azendoh lizard" is for the village of Azendoh, a local village near where it was first discovered in the Atlas Mountains. It was a bulky quadruped that unlike other early archosauromorphs had a relatively short tail and robust limbs that were held in an odd mix of sprawled hind limbs and raised forelimbs. It had a long neck and a proportionately small head with remarkably sauropod-like jaws and teeth.
  Azendohsaurus used to be classified as a herbivorous dinosaur, at first as an ornithischian but more often as a "prosauropod" sauropodomorph. This was based only on its jaws and teeth, which share derived features typically found in herbivorous dinosaurs.
context_section_description: The leaf-shaped teeth of Azendohsaurus are clearly suited for a herbivorous lifestyle, and microwear—marks left on the tooth surface during feeding—on the teeth of A. madagaskarensis suggest they were used for browsing on vegetation that was not especially tough or woody, preferring softer (but firm) vegetation. The microwear patterns also show that it used a simple up-and-down motion of the jaw, and did not use complex jaw movement to chew its food like ornithischian dinosaurs or contemporary cynodonts. This microwear has not yet been observed on the teeth of A. laaroussii, but it is unknown if this is a genuine feature relating to a difference in diet and feeding habits between the two species or if it is just a feature of preservation.
  The fully developed palatal teeth suggest that it was using them for feeding in a specialised manner. However, no functional studies have been performed on the palatal teeth so it is unknown exactly what they were used for, although their similar shape to the marginal teeth suggests they were used for processing similar food. A pterygoid from a younger individual of A. madagaskarensis has fewer rows of palatal teeth that are smaller in size than those of the larger, mature individuals, indicating that Azendohsaurus increased both the number and size of its palatal teeth as it grew into adulthood. Younger individuals also had fewer dentary teeth than adults, although the difference was much less extreme compared to the palatal teeth (16 compared to the 17 of mature specimens).
caption: Closeup of implanted teeth and the maxilla UA 8-29-97-160 of A. madagaskarensis
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