Qantassaurus
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Qantassaurus Temporal range: Early Cretaceous |
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| Skeletal reconstruction of Qantassaurus intrepidus at the Australian Museum, Sydney
115 MYA |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Sauropsida |
| Superorder: | Dinosauria |
| Order: | Ornithischia |
| Suborder: | Ornithopoda |
| Family: | ?Hypsilophodontidae |
| Genus: |
Qantassaurus Rich & Vickers-Rich, 1999 |
| Species | |
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115 MYA
Qantassaurus (/ˌkwɑːntəˈsɔːrəs/ KWAHN-tə-SOR-əs) is a genus of two-legged, plant-eating ornithischian dinosaur that lived in Australia about 115 million years ago, when the continent was still partly south of the Antarctic Circle. It was described by Patricia Vickers-Rich and her husband Tom Rich in 1999 after a find near Inverloch, and named after Qantas, the Australian airline.
Qantassaurus was probably about 1.8 meters (6 feet) long, and about one meter (3 feet) high. If it resembled its relatives, it had short thighs and long shins, and probably was a fast runner. Its feet had claws for traction, and a long tail probably helped with turning, stiffened by ossified tendons. One characteristic of the "Polar Victorian" euornithopods are distinctive spurs, or trochanters, on the upper surface of the thigh bone (or femur), where muscle was attached.
Qantassaurus is only known from jaw fragments. These are foreshortened compared to related species so its face was probably short and stubby. It had ten teeth in each lower jaw. It probably had a beak, and possessed leaf-shaped teeth back in its cheek, which were shed as they wore down, and replaced by new teeth growing up from the jaw. The teeth had eight distinctive vertical ridges on the outer side with a single larger primary ridge in the centre.
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