Trinisaura
"lizard"
- Length
- 1.5 m (4.9 ft)
- Period
- Late Cretaceous (73–72 Mya)
- Place
- Antarctica · Gondwana · Argentina
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Trinisaura is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived during the late Campanian stage of the Upper Cretaceous, around 73 to 72 million years ago in what is now James Ross Island off the coast of northern Antarctica near Patagonia. It is known from a single, incomplete postcranial skeleton that includes several vertebrae, a partial pelvis, and nearly complete right hindlimb. The fossils were collected in 2008 by paleontologists Juan Moly and Rodolfo Coria from the sandstone of the Snow Hill Island Formation. It remained undescribed in the collections of the Museo de La Plata until its description by Coria and colleagues in 2013, being the basis of the novel genus and species Trinisaura santamartaensis. The genus name is to commemorate the efforts of Argentine geologist Trinidad “Trini” Diaz and the Latin root -sauros, meaning “lizard”.
What we know
- Named by Coria et al., 2013.
- Body length estimated at about 1.5 m.
- Fossils found in Antarctica and Gondwana.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Trinisaura — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.