The arms were powerful, with a long and slender upper arm bone.
The neck was long, and its vertebrae were hollow, and very light. Most of the teeth had serrations at their front and back edges. Those in the lower jaw were much smaller than those of the upper jaw.
The teeth were long, curved, thin, and compressed sideways. The mandible was slender and delicate at the front, but deep at the back. It had a pair of longitudinal, plate-shaped crests on its skull, similar to a cassowary with two crests. The snout was narrow, and the upper jaw had a gap or kink below the nostril. It was slender and lightly built, and the skull was proportionally large, but delicate. Another species, Dilophosaurus sinensis from China, was named in 1993, but was later found to belong to the genus Sinosaurus.Īt about 7 meters (23 ft) in length, with a weight of about 400 kilograms (880 lb), Dilophosaurus was one of the earliest large predatory dinosaurs, though it was smaller than some later theropods. Footprints have also been attributed to the animal, including resting traces. Further specimens have since been found, including an infant. The genus name means "double-crested lizard", and the species name honors John Wetherill, a Navajo councilor. Realizing it bore crests on its skull, he assigned the species to the new genus Dilophosaurus in 1970, as Dilophosaurus wetherilli. Welles found a larger skeleton belonging to the same species in 1964. The most complete specimen became the holotype of a new species in the genus Megalosaurus, named M. wetherilli by Samuel P. Three skeletons were discovered in northern Arizona in 1940, and the two best preserved were collected in 1942. Dilophosaurus is a genus of theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now North America during the Early Jurassic, about 193 million years ago.
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