← Dinosaurs Noasauridae

Noasaurus Noasaurus

"Etymology TBD"

You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Noasaurus 1.5 m (4.9 ft) long
2 people holding hands
Length
1.5 m (4.9 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (70 Mya)
Place
Argentina
Food
Carnivore
Clade
Noasauridae

Noasaurus (“Northwestern Argentina lizard”) is a genus of ceratosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) of Argentina. The type and only species is N. leali. The fragmentary holotype specimen of Noasaurus, PVL 4061, consisting of a few cranial and postcranial bones, was discovered from strata from the Lecho Formation of Southern Salta in 1975 by a team led by José Fernando Bonaparte. When described by Bonaparte and in PhD student Jaime Powell in 1980, it was believed to be a coelurosaur theropod and assigned to a family of its own; this family, Noasauridae, still exists, though has been reassigned to Ceratosauria.

Noasaurus was a fairly small theropod, with PVL 4061 measuring somewhere between 1.6–2 in length.

What we know

  • Named by Bonaparte & Powell, 1980.
  • Body length estimated at about 1.5 m.
  • Fossils found in Argentina.