Book Fauna Palaestina 4 Year 2014 By Prof Dr Norman Ali Bassam Khalaf von Jaffa ISBN 978-9950-383-77-7

Etymology
The genus name Elaphrosaurus is derived from
the Greek words elaphro (ελαφρός) meaning "light" as in "lightweight",
a reference to its slender frame and "sauros" (σαυρος)
meaning "lizard"; thus, "lightweight lizard". Elaphrosaurus was
described and named by the German paleontologist Werner
Janensch* in 1920 and the type species is Elaphrosaurus bambergi
(Wikipedia).
Description
Elaphrosaurus was long and slender, with a long neck. What is
known about Elaphrosaurus mostly comes from a single nearly
complete skeleton and no skull has been found. It was distinctive
among theropods for being short-legged for its length. Paul (1988)
noted that this was the longest-trunked and shallowestchested
theropod that he has examined. Elaphrosaurus was about
6.2 meters (20 feet) long, 1.46 meter (5 feet) tall at the hip, and
weighed about 210 kilograms (463 pounds). The tibia (shin bone)
of Elaphrosaurus, measured 608 mm was considerably longer than
its femur (thigh bone) that measured 520 mm, which indicates
that it could probably run very fast. Its long tail ended with a rare
downward bend which may be unrelated to taphonomy
(Wikipedia).
Classification
Elaphrosaurus was first described as a coelurid. At the time,
Coeluridae was a wastebasket taxon for small theropods.
Then, Elaphrosaurus was placed in the family Ornithomimidae by
Nopcsa (1928) because of its light frame and the fact that
its humerus is straight and slender. Upon closer examination its
limbs approximate those of Coelophysis. Barsbold, Maryanska
and Osmolska (1990) and other researchers classified it as
an ornithomimid. More recent work by Carrano and Sampson
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