Marasuchus

Marasuchus Temporal range: Middle Triassic, 230 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Restored skeleton
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauriformes
Genus:	†Marasuchus Sereno & Arcucci, 1994
Species:	† M. lilloensis
Binomial name
Marasuchus lilloensis (Romer, 1972 [originally Lagosuchus])

Artist's restoration

Restoration

Marasuchus is a genus of dinosaur-like ornithodiran from the middle Triassic (Ladinian age, about 230 million years ago) Chañares Formation of Argentina. It was a small predator only 40 cm long.^[1]

Discovery

The species Marasuchus lilloensis was originally described as a second species of Lagosuchus, L. lilloensis. However, in a restudy of Lagosuchus by Sereno and Arcucci (1994), the authors concluded that the original (type) specimen was too poorly preserved to allow any further specimens to be assigned to the genus. They also noted that the L. lilloensis specimen had limb proportions different from the type species. On this basis, they assigned L. lilloensis to a new genus, Marasuchus.^[2]

References