Saturnalia (dinosaur)

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Saturnalia (dinosaur)

Saturnalia is a genus

Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
of very early saurischian dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
, from the Carnian

Carnian

The Carnian is the lowermost stage of the Upper Triassic series . Its boundaries are not characterized by major extinctions or biotic turnovers, but a climatic event occurred during the Carnian and seems to be associated with important extinctions or biotic radiations....
faunal stage

Faunal stage

In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a Geologic record laid down in an single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition....
of the late Triassic

Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period that extends from about 251 to 199 annum . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic....
period (227.4 to 220.7 million years ago), making it one of the oldest true dinosaurs yet found. It may have been a primitive sauropodomorph

Sauropodomorpha

The Sauropodomorpha were a group of long-necked, herbivore dinosaurs that eventually dropped down on quadruped and became the largest animals that ever terrestrial animal....
, a group which includes the giant sauropods

Sauropoda

Sauropoda , or the sauropods , are an Order or clade of saurischian dinosaurs. They notable for the enormous sizes attained by some species, and the group includes many of the largest animals to have ever lived on land....
. It probably grew to about 1.5 meters (5 ft) long. The few known remains of this genus have many prosauropod features, yet lack other characteristics shared by all dinosaurs.

primitive nature of Saturnalia, combined with its mixture of sauropodomorph and theropod characteristics, has made it difficult to classify.

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Encyclopedia

Saturnalia is a genus

Genus

Dinosaur

Carnian

Faunal stage

In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a Geologic record laid down in an single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition....
of the late Triassic

Triassic

Sauropodomorpha

Sauropoda

Classification

The primitive nature of Saturnalia, combined with its mixture of sauropodomorph and theropod characteristics, has made it difficult to classify. Paleontologist Max Cardoso Langer and colleagues, in their 1999 description of the genus, assigned it to the Sauropodomorpha. However, in a 2003 paper, Langer noted that features of its skull and hand were more similar to the sister group of sauropodomorphs, the theropods, and that Saturnalia could at best be considered a member of the sauropodomorph "stem-lineage", rather than a true member of that group.

Jose Bonaparte

José Bonaparte

Jos? Fernando Bonaparte, Doctor of Philosophy , is an Argentina paleontology who discovered a plethora of South American dinosaurs and mentored a new generation of Argentine paleontologists like Rodolfo Coria....
and colleagues, in a 2007 study, found Saturnalia to be very similar to the primitive saurischian Guaibasaurus
Guaibasaurus

Guaibasaurus was a basal Saurischian dinosaur genus which lived during the Triassic period. Its fossils were found in the geopark of Paleorrota, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil....
. Bonaparte placed the two in the same family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is a taxonomic rank. Exact details of formal nomenclature depend on the Nomenclature Codes which applies....
, Guaibasauridae

Guaibasauridae

Guaibasauridae is a Family of primitive saurischian dinosaurs, known from fossil remains of late Triassic period formations in Brazil and Argentina....
. Like Langer, Bonaparte found that these forms may have been primitive sauropodomorphs, or an assemblage of forms close to the common ancestor of the sauropodomorphs and theropods. Overall, Bonaparte found that both Saturnalia and Guaibasaurus were more theropod-like than prosauropod-like.

Discovery and species

The holotype

Holotype

A holotype is one of several possible biological types. A type is what fixes a name to a taxon. A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described....
was discovered in mid-winter at Sanga da Alemoa

Sanga da Alemoa

The Sanga da Alemoa paleontological site is located in the city of Santa Maria , Rio Grande do Sul, in Brazil. It belongs to the Caturrita Formation and the Santa Maria Formation....
, Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

is the southernmost States of Brazil of Brazil, and the State with the fourth highest Human Development Index . In Rio Grande do Sul is the most southern city of the country, Chu?, on Uruguayan border....
, in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the List of countries by population country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world....
, in the geopark

Geopark

A Geopark is defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in its UNESCO Geoparks International Network of Geoparks programme as follows:...
of Paleorrota

Paleorrota

Paleorrota , is a geopark located in the center of the state of the Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, along which are found Triassic rocks and fossils, from a time when there was only the continent Pangaea....
, and additional remains were discovered during the Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC....
winter solstice

Winter solstice

Winter solstice may refer to:* Winter solstice* Winter Solstice *...
festival, Saturnalia

Saturnalia

Saturnalia is the festival with which the Romans commemorated the dedication of the temple of the god Saturn , which was on 17 December. Over the years, it expanded to a whole week, to 23 December....
; after which it was named in 1999, along with a Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and Portugal. It is derived from the Latin language spoken by the Romanization Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago....
/Guarani

Guaraní language

Guaran? is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tup?-Guaran? subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by 94% of the population....
word meaning native. The partial skeleton and referred remains from two other specimens including a jaw

Jaw

The jaw is either of the two opposable structures forming, or near the entrance to the mouth.The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of most animals....
and teeth have also been discovered.

External links

.
, from Palæos. (technical)