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Concept
Herrerasaurus
Summary
Herrerasaurus is likely a genus of saurischian dinosaur from the Late Triassic period. This genus was one of the earliest dinosaurs from the fossil record. Its name means "Herrera's lizard", after the rancher who discovered the first specimen in 1958 in South America. All known fossils of this carnivore have been discovered in the Ischigualasto Formation of Carnian age (late Triassic according to the ICS, dated to 231.4 million years ago) in northwestern Argentina. The type species, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, was described by Osvaldo Reig in 1963 and is the only species assigned to the genus. Ischisaurus and Frenguellisaurus are synonyms.
For many years, the classification of Herrerasaurus was unclear because it was known from very fragmentary remains. It was hypothesized to be a basal theropod, a basal sauropodomorph, a basal saurischian, or not a dinosaur at all but another type of archosaur. However, with the discovery of an almost complete skeleton and skull in 1988, Herrerasaurus has been classified as an early saurischian in most of the phylogenies on the origin and early evolution of dinosaurs.
It is a member of the Herrerasauridae, a family of similar genera that were among the earliest of the dinosaurian evolutionary radiation.
Herrerasaurus was named by paleontologist Osvaldo Reig after Victorino Herrera, an Andean goatherd who first noticed its fossils in outcrops near the city of San Juan, Argentina in 1959. These rocks, which later yielded Eoraptor, are part of the Ischigualasto Formation and date from the late Ladinian to early Carnian stages of the Late Triassic period. Reig named a second dinosaur from these rocks in the same publication as Herrerasaurus; this dinosaur, Ischisaurus cattoi, is now considered a junior synonym and a juvenile of Herrerasaurus.
Reig believed Herrerasaurus was an early example of a carnosaur, but this was the subject of much debate over the next 30 years, and the genus was variously classified during that time. In 1970, Steel classified Herrerasaurus as a prosauropod.
Official source
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