This dinosaur weighed around 75 kg, making it one of the smallest known sauropodomorph species, and the smallest ever reported from the Jurassic period.
“Sauropodomorph dinosaurs were the largest land-dwelling vertebrates of all time, evolving body masses estimated at more than 90 tons,” said Dr. Kimberley Chapelle, a paleontologist with the American Museum of Natural History and the University of the Witwatersrand, and colleagues.
“However, the earliest sauropodomorphs that first evolved in the Carnian age (233-231 million years ago) were small omnivores (less than 15 kg), such as Saturnalia tupiniquim with a body mass of 11 kg.”
“By the Early Jurassic epoch (190-199 million years ago), early branching sauropodomorphs were globally distributed, had a range of postures and evolved masses exceeding 10 tons,” they added.
“Smaller early sauropodomorphs (less than 1 ton) are comparatively rare, although species like Massospondylus carinatus (adult body mass around 550 kg), and Adeopapposaurus mognai (immature body mass around 55.89 kg), persist at least until the Pliensbachian at nearly all dinosaur-bearing localities worldwide, and in the case of Massospondylus carinatus can be locally superabundant.”
“One potential reason for the scarcity of smaller early sauropodomorphs is interspecific competition and niche occupation by other herbivorous groups, including gomphodont cynodonts in the Late Triassic, early branching ornithischian dinosaurs as well as potentially herbivorous early branching crocodyliforms in the earliest Jurassic, and secondarily herbivorous theropods in the Late Jurassic.”
The newly-identified sauropodomorph species lived in what is now South Africa about 195 million years ago.
The dinosaur’s left humerus was first uncovered in 1978 in the Elliot Formation in the Free State of South Africa.
The bone tissues of the specimen indicate that the individual is fully grown with a body mass of 75.35 kg.
“The fossil was…
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