Trinisaura santamartaensis

Trinisaura is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived during the late Campanian stage of the Upper Cretaceous, around 73 million years ago in what is now James Ross Island off the coast of northern Antarctica near Patagonia. It is known from a single, incomplete postcranial skeleton that includes several vertebrae, a partial pelvis, and nearly complete right hindlimb. The fossils were collected in 2008 by paleontologists Juan Moly and Rodolfo Coria from the sandstone of the Snow Hill Island Formation. It remained undescribed in the collections of the Museo de La Plata until its description by Coria and colleagues in 2013, being the basis of the novel genus and species Trinisaura santamartaensis. The genus name is to commemorate the efforts of Argentine geologist Trinidad "Trini" Diaz and the Latin root -sauros, meaning "lizard". The species name is after Santa Marta Cove, where the fossils were collected.

Trinisaura santamartaensis

Levi B. Martinez-Reza · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
TrinisauraPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Ornithopoda
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB, for Ornithischia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ornithischia
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Ornithischia

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 83.6 Mya and 72.2 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceLate Cretaceous84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences82–82 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences81–81 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences81–80 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences80–80 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences80–79 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences79–79 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences78–78 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences77–77 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences76–76 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences76–75 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences75–75 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences75–74 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences74–74 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences73–73 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences73–73 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences84.1 Mya71.7 Mya

1 occurrence of Trinisaura santamartaensis on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

1 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Snow Hill Island — 63.93°S, 57.81°W

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The named rock units Trinisaura santamartaensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Trinisaura santamartaensis and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Trinisaura santamartaensis and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

7 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Trinisaura santamartaensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Trinisaura santamartaensis

Credit
Levi B. Martinez-Reza
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Trinisaura santamartaensis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itTrinisaura through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Coria et al. 2013