Arcusaurus
- Length
- 5 m (16.4 ft)
- Period
- Late Triassic (237–201 Mya)
- Place
- Africa · Asia · South Africa
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Arcusaurus is an extinct genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic (Pliensbachian stage) of South Africa. Arcusaurus was first named by Adam Yates, Matthew Bonnan and Johann Neveling in 2011 and the type species is Arcusaurus pereirabdalorum. The generic name is derived from Latin arcus, “rainbow”, a reference to the Rainbow Nation. The specific epithet honours Lucille Pereira and Fernando Abdala who discovered the fossils.
A phylogenetic study of Arcusaurus found it to be a basal sauropodomorph, placing it as the sister taxon of Efraasia and all of the more derived sauropodomorphs. Since Efraasia is known from the Norian stage of the Late Triassic, the close relationship with Arcusaurus implies that there was a 35-million-year ghost lineage of sauropodomorphs stretching from Late Triassic forms to Arcusaurus.
What we know
- Named by Yates et al., 2011.
- Fossils found in Africa and Asia.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Arcusaurus — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.