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Desmatosuchus

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58-812: Desmatosuchus ( / d ɛ z m æ t oʊ s uː k ə s / , from Greek δεσμός desmos 'link' + σοῦχος soûkhos 'crocodile') is an extinct genus of archosaur belonging to the Order Aetosauria . It lived during the Late Triassic . Desmatosuchus was a large quadrupedal reptile measuring 4.5 m (15 ft) to over 5 m (16 ft) long and weighing about 280–300 kg (620–660 lb). Its vertebral column had amphicoelous centra and 3 sacral vertebrae. This archosaur's most distinguishing anatomical characteristics were its scapulae which possessed large acromion processes commonly referred to as "shoulder spikes". The forelimbs were much shorter than

116-570: A basis for coinages: anthropology , photography , telephony , isomer , biomechanics , cinematography , etc. Together with Latin words , they form the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary ; for example, all words ending in -logy ('discourse'). There are many English words of Greek origin . Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient language most closely related to it may be ancient Macedonian , which, by most accounts,

174-552: A fairly stable set of consonantal contrasts . The main phonological changes occurred during the Hellenistic and Roman period (see Koine Greek phonology for details): In all its stages, the morphology of Greek shows an extensive set of productive derivational affixes , a limited but productive system of compounding and a rich inflectional system. Although its morphological categories have been fairly stable over time, morphological changes are present throughout, particularly in

232-556: A faster, more convenient cursive writing style with the use of ink and quill . The Greek alphabet consists of 24 letters, each with an uppercase ( majuscule ) and lowercase ( minuscule ) form. The letter sigma has an additional lowercase form (ς) used in the final position of a word: In addition to the letters, the Greek alphabet features a number of diacritical signs : three different accent marks ( acute , grave , and circumflex ), originally denoting different shapes of pitch accent on

290-531: A foreign language. It is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, " Homeric Greek is probably closer to Demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English ". Greek is spoken today by at least 13 million people, principally in Greece and Cyprus along with a sizable Greek-speaking minority in Albania near

348-694: Is a genus of aetosaur . Fossils have been found from the Chinle Formation in Arizona and New Mexico that date back to the upper Late Carnian stage of the Late Triassic . " Desmatosuchus " chamaensis was named in 2003 and found from the Petrified Forest Member of the Chinle Formation in New Mexico. It was suggested to be more closely related to Paratypothorax , and so Parker gave it

406-766: Is also found in Bulgaria near the Greek-Bulgarian border. Greek is also spoken worldwide by the sizable Greek diaspora which has notable communities in the United States , Australia , Canada , South Africa , Chile , Brazil , Argentina , Russia , Ukraine , the United Kingdom , and throughout the European Union , especially in Germany . Historically, significant Greek-speaking communities and regions were found throughout

464-742: Is an Indo-European language, constituting an independent Hellenic branch within the Indo-European language family. It is native to Greece , Cyprus , Italy (in Calabria and Salento ), southern Albania , and other regions of the Balkans , Caucasus , the Black Sea coast, Asia Minor , and the Eastern Mediterranean . It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning at least 3,400 years of written records. Its writing system

522-474: Is an Indo-European language, but also includes a number of borrowings from the languages of the populations that inhabited Greece before the arrival of Proto-Greeks, some documented in Mycenaean texts ; they include a large number of Greek toponyms . The form and meaning of many words have changed. Loanwords (words of foreign origin) have entered the language, mainly from Latin, Venetian , and Turkish . During

580-515: Is further evidenced by its toothless premaxilla and dentary tip, which were covered in horny sheaths. These sheaths protected the bones and could be used for cutting or holding objects. It is believed that Desmatosuchus dug for food in the soft mud near bodies of water due to the abundance of lakes and rivers in the Dockum area and the fact that Desmatosuchus scutes are often found among parts of other reptiles that are known to have fed along waterways. It

638-526: Is more tenuous, however, since Desmatosuchus have a crest over their hind limbs but lack one on their forelimbs, meaning that they likely didn't have the musculature for digging with their forelimbs the way armadillos do. In spite of these parallels, the general consensus is still that Desmatosuchus was most likely herbivorous. Greek language Greek ( Modern Greek : Ελληνικά , romanized :  Elliniká , [eliniˈka] ; Ancient Greek : Ἑλληνική , romanized :  Hellēnikḗ )

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696-510: Is protected and promoted officially as a regional and minority language in Armenia, Hungary , Romania, and Ukraine. It is recognized as a minority language and protected in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne . The phonology , morphology , syntax , and vocabulary of the language show both conservative and innovative tendencies across the entire attestation of the language from the ancient to

754-787: Is sometimes called aljamiado , as when Romance languages are written in the Arabic alphabet. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Greek: Transcription of the example text into Latin alphabet : Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in English: Proto-Greek Mycenaean Ancient Koine Medieval Modern Heliocanthus Rioarribasuchus

812-518: Is spoken by at least 13.5 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey , and the many other countries of the Greek diaspora . Greek roots have been widely used for centuries and continue to be widely used to coin new words in other languages; Greek and Latin are the predominant sources of international scientific vocabulary . Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around

870-758: Is still used internationally for the writing of Ancient Greek . In Greek, the question mark is written as the English semicolon, while the functions of the colon and semicolon are performed by a raised point (•), known as the ano teleia ( άνω τελεία ). In Greek the comma also functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ό,τι ( ó,ti , 'whatever') from ότι ( óti , 'that'). Ancient Greek texts often used scriptio continua ('continuous writing'), which means that ancient authors and scribes would write word after word with no spaces or punctuation between words to differentiate or mark boundaries. Boustrophedon , or bi-directional text,

928-630: Is the Greek alphabet , which has been used for approximately 2,800 years; previously, Greek was recorded in writing systems such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary . The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin , Cyrillic , Coptic , Gothic , and many other writing systems. The Greek language holds a very important place in the history of the Western world. Beginning with

986-561: Is unknown whether or not Desmatosuchus replaced their teeth and, if so, how. The low number of Desmatosuchus teeth that have been discovered indicates that they were only held in place by soft tissue connections. The jaw articulation point is below the tooth line, holding its upper and lower tooth rows parallel while biting in a way that is reminiscent of ornithischian dinosaurs. The armor and spikes of Desmatosuchus were its only ways to defend itself from predators. The lateral spike rows showed variation in size among individuals, especially

1044-508: The Journal of Systematic Palaeontology . However, a paper previously published in late 2006 assigned "D". chamaensis to the new genus Rioarribasuchus . As a result, Heliocanthus is a junior objective synonym of Rioarribasuchus because the genus has seniority over Heliocanthus . However, the name Rioarribasuchus has been viewed as a violation of the code of ethics laid out in Appendix A of

1102-486: The Eastern Mediterranean , in what are today Southern Italy , Turkey , Cyprus , Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Palestine , Egypt , and Libya ; in the area of the Black Sea , in what are today Turkey, Bulgaria , Romania , Ukraine , Russia , Georgia , Armenia , and Azerbaijan ; and, to a lesser extent, in the Western Mediterranean in and around colonies such as Massalia , Monoikos , and Mainake . It

1160-510: The Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ), but little definitive evidence has been found. In addition, Albanian has also been considered somewhat related to Greek and Armenian, and it has been proposed that they all form a higher-order subgroup along with other extinct languages of the ancient Balkans; this higher-order subgroup is usually termed Palaeo-Balkan , and Greek has a central position in it. Linear B , attested as early as

1218-492: The nominal and verbal systems. The major change in the nominal morphology since the classical stage was the disuse of the dative case (its functions being largely taken over by the genitive ). The verbal system has lost the infinitive , the synthetically -formed future, and perfect tenses and the optative mood . Many have been replaced by periphrastic ( analytical ) forms. Pronouns show distinctions in person (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), number (singular, dual , and plural in

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1276-465: The 3rd millennium BC, or possibly earlier. The earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the world's oldest recorded living language . Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now-extinct Anatolian languages . The Greek language is conventionally divided into

1334-623: The Dockum formation, Chinle formation, and Post quarry, indicating that they were widespread and abundant during the Late Triassic. It is possible that Desmatosuchus traveled in herds or family units. This is evidenced by several findings of multiple Desmatosuchus skeletons in relatively small areas. Desmatosuchus had blunt, bulbous, slightly recurved teeth. Furthermore, they are believed to have had homodont dentition. This, combined with its shovel like snout, indicate that Desmatosuchus fed by digging up soft vegetation. This method of feeding

1392-486: The Greek alphabet since approximately the 9th century BC. It was created by modifying the Phoenician alphabet , with the innovation of adopting certain letters to represent the vowels. The variant of the alphabet in use today is essentially the late Ionic variant, introduced for writing classical Attic in 403 BC. In classical Greek, as in classical Latin, only upper-case letters existed. The lower-case Greek letters were developed much later by medieval scribes to permit

1450-425: The Greek language are often emphasized. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, never since classical antiquity has its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition been interrupted to the extent that one can speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than

1508-491: The Greek language was the Cypriot syllabary (also a descendant of Linear A via the intermediate Cypro-Minoan syllabary ), which is closely related to Linear B but uses somewhat different syllabic conventions to represent phoneme sequences. The Cypriot syllabary is attested in Cyprus from the 11th century BC until its gradual abandonment in the late Classical period, in favor of the standard Greek alphabet. Greek has been written in

1566-629: The Greek verb have likewise remained largely the same over the course of the language's history but with significant changes in the number of distinctions within each category and their morphological expression. Greek verbs have synthetic inflectional forms for: Many aspects of the syntax of Greek have remained constant: verbs agree with their subject only, the use of the surviving cases is largely intact (nominative for subjects and predicates, accusative for objects of most verbs and many prepositions, genitive for possessors), articles precede nouns, adpositions are largely prepositional, relative clauses follow

1624-661: The Greek-Albanian border. A significant percentage of Albania's population has knowledge of the Greek language due in part to the Albanian wave of immigration to Greece in the 1980s and '90s and the Greek community in the country. Prior to the Greco-Turkish War and the resulting population exchange in 1923 a very large population of Greek-speakers also existed in Turkey , though very few remain today. A small Greek-speaking community

1682-532: The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and the papers that made use of the name have even been described as practicing "intellectual theft". An article published later in 2007 in the science blog Tetrapod Zoology brought these events to the attention of a wider range of readers, and the controversy was dubbed "Aetogate". This sparked continued debate regarding these issues among vertebrate paleontologists, which eventually led to an investigation by

1740-463: The Late Triassic lacked certain pelvic features that aided locomotion, such as a deep acetabulum or a crest over the acetabulum. This, in spite of their upright posture, rendered them only slightly more mobile than sprawling reptiles. Desmatosuchus possessed both of these features, along with its long femur and elongate pubis, making it more mobile than most thecodonts of its time. This mobility, along with its size, abundance, and specialized beak made it

1798-404: The acute during the late 20th century, and it has only been retained in typography . After the writing reform of 1982, most diacritics are no longer used. Since then, Greek has been written mostly in the simplified monotonic orthography (or monotonic system), which employs only the acute accent and the diaeresis. The traditional system, now called the polytonic orthography (or polytonic system),

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1856-402: The ancient language; singular and plural alone in later stages), and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), and decline for case (from six cases in the earliest forms attested to four in the modern language). Nouns, articles, and adjectives show all the distinctions except for a person. Both attributive and predicative adjectives agree with the noun. The inflectional categories of

1914-787: The chief herbivore in the Dockum area. It has also been suggested that Desmatosuchus could have been omnivorous or even an insectivore. This is because of several similarities between Desmatosuchus and armadillos . For instance, both groups are armored. They possess long snouts that lack teeth on the end. Also, there is evidence of bees, wasps, and termites in the Late Triassic, meaning that Desmatosuchus had access to insects that armadillos prey on. Their teeth are somewhat similar in shape, although armadillos have more peg-like teeth. Both Desmatosuchus and armadillos typically carry around 6 teeth on their dentaries. Both armadillos and Desmatosuchus have hypertrophied processes present on their limb bones, which indicates large limb muscles. This connection

1972-404: The early 19th century that was used for literary and official purposes in the newly formed Greek state. In 1976, Dimotiki was declared the official language of Greece, after having incorporated features of Katharevousa and thus giving birth to Standard Modern Greek , used today for all official purposes and in education . The historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of

2030-602: The epics of Homer , ancient Greek literature includes many works of lasting importance in the European canon . Greek is also the language in which many of the foundational texts in science and philosophy were originally composed. The New Testament of the Christian Bible was also originally written in Greek. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world , the Greek texts and Greek societies of antiquity constitute

2088-572: The fifth in all of them. Desmatosuchus are the only aetosaurs known to have possessed spines like these. The first Desmatosuchus discovery occurred in the late 19th century when E.D. Cope classified armor from the Dockum Group in Texas , USA, as the new species Episcoposaurus haplocerus . Case later classified a partial skeleton found in the Tecovas Formation as Desmatosuchus spurensis . Since

2146-452: The following periods: In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia : the coexistence of vernacular and archaizing written forms of the language. What came to be known as the Greek language question was a polarization between two competing varieties of Modern Greek: Dimotiki , the vernacular form of Modern Greek proper, and Katharevousa , meaning 'purified', a compromise between Dimotiki and Ancient Greek developed in

2204-509: The hindlimbs, with humeri less than two-thirds the length of the femurs . The pelvic girdle consisted of a long pubis with a strong symphysis in the middle, a plate-like ischium , a highly recurved ilium , and a deep, imperforate acetabulum . The femurs were relatively long and straight, the ankles crurotarsal , with calcaneal tubers that gave it large heels. Its skull was relatively small, on average about 37 centimeters long, 18 centimeters wide, and 15 centimeters high. The braincase

2262-439: The infinitive entirely (employing a raft of new periphrastic constructions instead) and uses participles more restrictively. The loss of the dative led to a rise of prepositional indirect objects (and the use of the genitive to directly mark these as well). Ancient Greek tended to be verb-final, but neutral word order in the modern language is VSO or SVO. Modern Greek inherits most of its vocabulary from Ancient Greek, which in turn

2320-463: The late 15th century BC, was the first script used to write Greek. It is basically a syllabary , which was finally deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick in the 1950s (its precursor, Linear A , has not been deciphered and most likely encodes a non-Greek language). The language of the Linear B texts, Mycenaean Greek , is the earliest known form of Greek. Another similar system used to write

2378-429: The localities of Cope and Case were only a few kilometers apart, the two taxa were synonymized into Desmatosuchus haplocerus , the initial type species of the genus. A revision of Desmatosuchus by Parker (2008) found the lectotype of Episcoposaurus haplocerus to be referable to Desmatosuchus but indeterminate at the species level. Therefore, E. haplocerus was considered to be a nomen dubium and D. spurensis

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2436-475: The medial side of the internal nares . These internal nares were relatively large, roughly half the length of the entire palate. The lower jaw typically carried 5 or 6 teeth, and had a toothless beak on the end. The dentary was about half the length of the lower jaw, with the front portion being toothless and covered by a horny sheath. Behind the dentary was a moderately large mandibular fenestra . Individuals of Desmatosuchus were heavily armored. The carapace

2494-621: The membership of Greece and Cyprus in the European Union, Greek is one of the organization's 24 official languages . Greek is recognized as a minority language in Albania, and used co-officially in some of its municipalities, in the districts of Gjirokastër and Sarandë . It is also an official minority language in the regions of Apulia and Calabria in Italy. In the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages , Greek

2552-441: The modern period. The division into conventional periods is, as with all such periodizations, relatively arbitrary, especially because, in all periods, Ancient Greek has enjoyed high prestige, and the literate borrowed heavily from it. Across its history, the syllabic structure of Greek has varied little: Greek shows a mixed syllable structure, permitting complex syllabic onsets but very restricted codas. It has only oral vowels and

2610-403: The name Heliocanthus . However, this new generic name was first proposed in an unpublished thesis, and thus did not meet ICZN regulations for the naming of a new taxon. Later published papers reasserted the genetic separation of "D". chamaensis from Desmatosuchus , but the name Heliocanthus remained a nomen nudum until 2007, where it was thoroughly rediscribed in a paper published by

2668-399: The noun they modify and relative pronouns are clause-initial. However, the morphological changes also have their counterparts in the syntax, and there are also significant differences between the syntax of the ancient and that of the modern form of the language . Ancient Greek made great use of participial constructions and of constructions involving the infinitive, and the modern variety lacks

2726-521: The objects of study of the discipline of Classics . During antiquity , Greek was by far the most widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world . It eventually became the official language of the Byzantine Empire and developed into Medieval Greek . In its modern form , Greek is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union . It

2784-706: The older periods of Greek, loanwords into Greek acquired Greek inflections, thus leaving only a foreign root word. Modern borrowings (from the 20th century on), especially from French and English, are typically not inflected; other modern borrowings are derived from Albanian , South Slavic ( Macedonian / Bulgarian ) and Eastern Romance languages ( Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian ). Greek words have been widely borrowed into other languages, including English. Example words include: mathematics , physics , astronomy , democracy , philosophy , athletics , theatre, rhetoric , baptism , evangelist , etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as

2842-640: The second most anterior spike. This spike was always shorter than the one in front of it, but to what extent varied drastically. This variation may indicate sexual dimorphism . It has also been hypothesized as a form of sexual display. Aside from this armor, Desmatosuchus was defenseless from attacks from carnivores. Several Desmatosuchus bones have been found amongst skeletons of Postosuchus , indicating predation by Postosuchus . The herd nature of Desmatosuchus apparently did little to discourage predators, as Postosuchus along with several other Late Triassic carnivores also traveled in groups. Most thecodonts of

2900-437: The stressed vowel; the so-called breathing marks ( rough and smooth breathing ), originally used to signal presence or absence of word-initial /h/; and the diaeresis , used to mark the full syllabic value of a vowel that would otherwise be read as part of a diphthong. These marks were introduced during the course of the Hellenistic period. Actual usage of the grave in handwriting saw a rapid decline in favor of uniform usage of

2958-568: Was a distinct dialect of Greek itself. Aside from the Macedonian question, current consensus regards Phrygian as the closest relative of Greek, since they share a number of phonological, morphological and lexical isoglosses , with some being exclusive between them. Scholars have proposed a Graeco-Phrygian subgroup out of which Greek and Phrygian originated. Among living languages, some Indo-Europeanists suggest that Greek may be most closely related to Armenian (see Graeco-Armenian ) or

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3016-549: Was also used as the official language of government and religion in the Christian Nubian kingdoms , for most of their history. Greek, in its modern form, is the official language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population. It is also the official language of Cyprus (nominally alongside Turkish ) and the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (alongside English ). Because of

3074-546: Was also used in Ancient Greek. Greek has occasionally been written in the Latin script , especially in areas under Venetian rule or by Greek Catholics . The term Frankolevantinika / Φραγκολεβαντίνικα applies when the Latin script is used to write Greek in the cultural ambit of Catholicism (because Frankos / Φράγκος is an older Greek term for West-European dating to when most of (Roman Catholic Christian) West Europe

3132-430: Was made up of two rows of median scutes surrounded by two more rows of lateral scutes. The lateral scutes had well-developed spine-like processes which pointed out laterally and dorso-posteriorly. There were typically five rows of spines, increasing in size anteriorly. The front spine was much larger, around 28 centimeters long, and was recurved. The fourth spine varies in length in each specimen, but remains shorter than

3190-1055: Was named the type species of the genus. Two species were accepted as valid: D. spurensis and D. smalli , named after Brian J. Small for his contribution to the study of this genus. Desmatosuchus chamaensis is recognized as a distinct genus, but there is some dispute about whether the name Heliocanthus or Rioarribasuchus applies. The following cladogram is simplified, after an analysis presented by Julia B. Desojo, Martin D. Ezcurra and Edio E. Kischlat (2012). Aetosauroides scagliai Aetosaurus ferratus Coahomasuchus kahleorum Neoaetosauroides engaeus Calyptosuchus wellesi Stagonolepis robertsoni Aetobarbakinoides brasiliensis Typothorax Redondasuchus Tecovasuchus chatterjeei Rioarribasuchus chamaensis Paratypothorax andressorum Sierritasuchus macalpini Longosuchus meadei Lucasuchus hunti Acaenasuchus geoffreyi Desmatosuchus haplocerus Desmatosuchus smalli Bones and armor pieces of Desmatosuchus are abundant in

3248-566: Was under the control of the Frankish Empire ). Frankochiotika / Φραγκοχιώτικα (meaning 'Catholic Chiot') alludes to the significant presence of Catholic missionaries based on the island of Chios . Additionally, the term Greeklish is often used when the Greek language is written in a Latin script in online communications. The Latin script is nowadays used by the Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy . The Yevanic dialect

3306-496: Was very firmly fused with the skull roof and palate. It had slender, forked premaxillae that turned up and expanded in the front, creating a shovel-like structure. Desmatosuchus is unique among aetosaurs in that its species are the only known aetosaurs that lacked teeth on their premaxillae. Their premaxillae fit loosely together with their maxillae , indicating flexibility at that joint. Their maxilla contained 10 to 12 teeth. Desmatosuchus also had very thin vomers , which bounded

3364-653: Was written by Romaniote and Constantinopolitan Karaite Jews using the Hebrew Alphabet . In a tradition, that in modern time, has come to be known as Greek Aljamiado , some Greek Muslims from Crete wrote their Cretan Greek in the Arabic alphabet . The same happened among Epirote Muslims in Ioannina . This also happened among Arabic-speaking Byzantine rite Christians in the Levant ( Lebanon , Palestine, and Syria ). This usage

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