Leonerasaurus
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Leonerasaurus Temporal range: Early Jurassic, 199 Ma |
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| Restored skeleton, photographed at the special exhibition "DINOSAURIER – Giganten Argentiniens" when stationed at the ForschungsMuseum Alexander König in Bonn in 2009. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Saurischia |
| Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
| Clade: | †Sauropodiformes |
| Clade: | †Anchisauria |
| Genus: |
†Leonerasaurus Pol, Garrido & Cerda, 2011 |
| Species: | †L. taquetrensis |
| Binomial name | |
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Leonerasaurus taquetrensis Pol, Garrido & Cerda, 2011 |
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Leonerasaurus is a basal genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur. Currently, there is only one species known, named L. taquetrensis by Diego Pol, Alberto Garrido and Ignacio A. Cerda in 2011. The fossil, an incomplete subadult individual, was found in the Las Leoneras Formation in Argentina. This formation is probably Early Jurassic in age. Leonerasaurus was a small non-sauropod sauropodomorph, showing an unusual combination of basal and derived characters. This indicates that the evolution of early sauropodomorphs witnessed a great degree of convergent evolution.
Leonerasaurus taquetrensis is known from one incomplete individual. Parts of a dentary and some teeth, neck and trunk vertebrae, a sacrum, parts of the pectoral (shoulder) and pelvis (hip) girdle as well as several limb bones were found. Much of the remains were found in articulation.
Of the skull only the anterior part of the right dentary was found. Near the area where it touches the contralateral element at the tip of the lower jaw (the symphysis) the bone is straight and only gently arched medially, as is seen in basal sauropods. More derived sauropods (eusauropods) have medially broadly arching symphyseal regione and anterior portions of the tooth row. The ventral (lower) edge of the dentary is damaged, but does not appear to be ventrally deflected at the symphysis as in some basal sauropodomorphs such as Plateosaurus. Also, a longitudinal ridge that is seen in some basal sauropodomorphs (e.g., Massospondylus, Coloradisaurus and Plateosaurus) is not preserved in Leonerasaurus. However, this may be related to the damaged state of the specimen.
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