Lucio M.Ibiricu, Gabriel A. Casal, RubÃn D. MartÃnez, Marcelo Luna, Juan I. Canale, Bruno N. Ãlvarez & Bernardo GonzÃlez Riga (2019)
A new ornithopod dinosaur (Dinosauria; Ornithischia) from the Late Cretaceous of central Patagonia.
Cretaceous Research (advance online publication)
A new ornithopod dinosaur, the medium-sized Sektensaurus sanjuanboscoi, gen. et sp nov. from the Coniacian-Maastricthian strata of the Lago Colhuà Huapi Formation, Golfo San Jorge Basin, Patagonia, is here described. The specimen consists of disarticulated cranial and postcranial bones belonging to a single individual. It is diagnosed by a unique association of five autapomorphies on the dorsal and sacral vertebrae and the humerus. A cladistics analysis indicates that Sektensaurus was an iguanodontian ornithopods which inhabited Patagonia during the Late Cretaceous. Likewise, Sektensaurus is the first non-hadrosaurid, probably elasmarian, ornithopod named by the Latest Cretaceous of central Patagonia. In a broad context, this discovery increases the anatomical knowledge of ornithopods and adds new data on the compositions of dinosaur faunas that lived in Patagonia close to the Antarctica, to the end of the Cretaceous.