Minmi (dinosaur)
|
Minmi Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, 119–113 Ma |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Restoration, mainly based on Kunbarrasaurus | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | †Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | †Ankylosauria |
| Family: | †Ankylosauridae |
| Genus: |
†Minmi Molnar, 1980 |
| Species: | †M. paravertebra |
| Binomial name | |
|
Minmi paravertebra Molnar, 1980 |
|
Minmi is a genus of small herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period of Australia, about 119 to 113 million years ago.
In 1964, Dr Alan Bartholomai, a collaborator of the Queensland Museum, discovered a chalkstone nodule containing an ankylosaurian skeleton in Queensland near Minmi Crossing, along the Injun Road, one kilometre south of Mack Gulley, north of Roma.
In 1980, Ralph E. Molnar named and described the type species, in this case the only species known in the genus, Minmi paravertebra. The generic name, at the time the shortest of a Mesozoic dinosaur, refers to Minmi Crossing. The meaning of "minmi" itself is uncertain; it refers to a large lily in the local aboriginal language but might also be derived from min min, a kind of will-o'-the-wisp. The specific name refers to strange bone elements found along the vertebrae, for which Molnar coined the designation paravertebrae.
The holotype, QM F10329, was discovered in a layer of the Bungil Formation, the Minmi Member, a lagoon deposit which was first dated to the Barremian-Valanginian, but later was recalibrated to the Aptian. It consists of a partial skeleton, lacking the skull. It preserves a series of eleven back vertebrae, ribs, a right hindlimb, and plates of the belly armour. It was the first specimen of a member of the Thyreophora discovered in the Southern Hemisphere.
...
Wikipedia