#eoraptor

Eoraptor using Ischigualastia (busy eating) as a convenient lookout.

Day 17: Eoraptor

[ E-Raptor ]

This is a piece i did based on Prehistoric Nature mod biomes

Eoraptor is a genus of basal sauropodomorph dinosaur, and one of the earliest known dinosaurs to exist, which lived throughout what is now South America during the Carnian stage of the Triassic Period some 231 to 228 mya. The first remains of Eoraptor consisting of a partial articulated skeleton were unearthed in 1991 from the Valle de la Luna and the Cancha de Bochas Member of the Ischigualasto Formation in Argentina, by paleontologist university of San Juan paleontologist Ricardo Martínez, during field work conducted by the University of Chicago and the University of San Juan. The specimen was then shipped to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for preparation by William F. Simpson and Bob Masek. It was then described by Paul Sereno, Catherine Forster, Raymond R. Rogers, and Alfredo M. Monetta in 1993. Who named the animal Eoraptor lunensis meaning dawn plunderer from the Valley of the Moon. Said holotype was later returned to Argentina where it remains on display at the Museum of Natural Sciences. Today three mostly complete Eoraptor remains have been recovered along with other isolated elements such as teeth. Reaching around 3.3 to 5.7ft (1 to 1.7m) in length and 11 to 22lbs (5 to 10 kgs) in weight, eoraptor was quite small and lightly built compared especially compared to its titanic descendants the sauropods. It was a bipedal animal, capable surprising speed and agility, with flexible 5 fingered hands which sported 3 large claws likely used to help capture prey. Combined with its distinctive lightly built skull, these features caused scientists to first assign eoraptor as a theropod. However over time certain skeletal morphologies and its leaf shaped teeth lead it to reclassified as a sauropodomorph. In life eoraptor would have been an omnivore feeding upon ferns, cycads, seeds, horsetails, conifers, insects, fungi, and small vertebrates.

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