Troll_Man

WWD: Dryosaurus altus

Added 2023-04-18 11:10:48 +0000 UTC

The other unnamed background ornithopod in the episode... sort of. In some scenes, an unnamed green ornithopod with a red head appears which is clearly distinct from the blue-headed and striped Othnielia/Nanosaurus, but as far as I know it's never been identified. Since the various small ornithopods of the Morrison Formations have been lumped together, by process of elimination, Dryosaurus seems most plausible now (since it sure isn't Camptosaurus).

Dryosaurus also appeared, by name this time, in The Ballad of Big Al, although it looked different than it did in WWD, if that's what it was, with a pale body with dark splotches. I've congealed the red head of the original with the splotchy body of that version, partly just because the primitive feathers of this redesign would be unlikely to hold pigment or structural colouration capable of green colours.

One thing to note is that the size pictured here is somewhat speculative, because adult Dryosaurus have yet to be described. For a small, generic ornithopod, it has an interesting shape and proportions, with a rather tall and long torso, a very thick tail, and rather small skull and forelimbs. If you sorted the three most common Morrison ornithopods, it would be about in the middle in size range between the smaller Nanosaurus and the bigger Camptosaurus.