Sacisaurus
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Sacisaurus Temporal range: Late Triassic, 225 Ma |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Clade: | Dinosauromorpha |
| Clade: | Dinosauriformes |
| Clade: | †Silesauridae |
| Genus: |
†Sacisaurus Ferigolo & Langer, 2006 |
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Sacisaurus is a silesaurid dinosauriform from the Late Triassic (Norian) Caturrita Formation of southern Brazil. The scientific name refers to the city where the species was found, Agudo in the Rio Grande do Sul state and to Saci, a famous one-legged creature from Brazilian mythology, because the fossil skeleton was found with a leg missing. It was discovered in the geopark of Paleorrota.
Sacisaurus was 1.5 meters (5 ft) long and 70 centimeters (2.3 ft) high. Its long and strong legs indicate that it was a fast animal. According to Jorge Ferigolo, paleontologist of Zoobothanic Foundation of Rio Grande do Sul state, the biggest teeth of the genus were 3 millimeters (1/12 in) long.
The well-preserved jaw indicates that Sacisaurus was an herbivore, and there is a process at the tip that resembles the ornithischian predentary bone. Further research attempted to define if Sacisaurus was the oldest ornithischian dinosaur. Through a cladistic analysis of some of its morphological particularities, its closest relative was found to be the silesaurid Diodorus.
Sacisaurus was discovered in 2001 in the small municipality of Agudo, in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul state. With 50 bones, scientists assembled the skeleton and speculated on how the animal might have lived. The fossil was presented for the first time in the 2nd Latin American Congress of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2005.
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Wikipedia