When you think about where dinosaurs lived, India certainly does not come in mind first but you would be surprised with how many dinosaurs fossils have been found throughout India and it is fascinating to see that when paleontologists said that dinosaurs lived everywhere, they actually did live everywhere. I believe in an ideal world, every country would have a budget for the paleontology economy and every country could find their own dinosaurs. I am glad that even in developing countries like India, they have paleontological community and they are hard at work trying to learn about their prehistoric life. Without wasting anymore time, let’s see what they have discovered.
The list below consists of all the India dinosaurs discovered in India. There are about 25 dinosaur species discovered while all are not properly named yet.
- Alwalkeria (Lower Maleri Formation, Late Triassic, 1994)
- Barapasaurus (Kota Formation, Early Jurassic, 1975)
- Brachypodosaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1934)
- Bruhathkayosaurus (Kallamedu Formation, Early Jurassic, 1987)
- Composuchus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1933)
- Dandakosaurus (Kota Formation, Early Jurassic, 1982)
- Indosaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1933)
- Indosuchus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1933)
- Isisaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 2003)
- Jainosaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1995)
- Jaklapallisaurus (Upper Maleri Formation, Late Triassic, 2011)
- Jubbulpuria (Kota Formation, Early Jurassic, 1988)
- Kotasaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1931)
- Laevisuchus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1933)
- Lametasaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1923)
- Lamplughsaura (Dharmaram Formation, Early Jurassic, 2007)
- Nambalia (Upper Maleri Formation, Late Triassic, 2011)
- Orthogoniosaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1931)
- Pradhania (Dharmaram Formation, Early Jurassic, 2007)
- Rahiolisaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 2010)
- Rajasaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 2003)
- Tharosaurus (Jaisalmer Formation, Middle Jurassic, 2023)
- Titanosaurus (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1877)
- *Coeluroides (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1933)
- *Dryptosauroides (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1932)
- *Ornithomimoides (Lameta Formation, Late Cretaceous, 1932)
* not yet named
As you can see from the list above, that’s a lot of dinosaurs and even a sauropod clade named Titanosauria was named after the Titanosaurus!! It seems like there is more than what meets the eye and if more paleontologists fund expeditions in these countries, we can be sure that we will have even more dinosaurs. India has great potential in the paleontology because they have rock layers of all ages and we can find whole new ecosystems for each period of Mesozoic. The possibilities are endless and I feel like countries like India should have more awareness and I hope to see more dinosaurs out of India.
While I was going through my research, I suspiciously did not find any Flying reptiles or Marine reptiles which might have existed and I feel like the most logical answer would be that those animals are just not discovered yet. Flying and Marine reptiles must have existed in India because Flying reptiles can stay anywhere as long as there is land and for Marine, it might be hard but we can probably find some in the Triassic-aged rocks because a location close to India, Tibet, discovered a massive ichthyosaur called Himalayasaurus.
So, practically do not see a reason why there should be a void of those species in this landmass. Hopefully in the near future, we can find even more varied Prehistoric life in India and that will be it for this post!!
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