Round One: Bagualosaurus vs Issi
Bagualosaurus (left) or Issi (right)?
Bagualosaurus
Issi
Factfiles:
Bagualosaurus agudoensis
Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs
Name meaning: Strongly built reptile from Agudo (from regional usage of “bagual” in southern Brazil to mean a well built but crude person)
Time: ~230 million years ago (Carnian stage of the Late Triassic)
Location: Candelária sequence, Upper Santa Maria Formation, Brazil
Although most famous for their enormous size, the sauropodomorphs began as little scurrying bipeds like all other dinosaurs. It wasn’t long though before they started packing on the beef amd shooting for size and power, and Bagualosaurus marks the beginning of that shift. It was still small, only a little over 2 metres long, but its skeleton shows some of the first signs of bulking up, hence its name! Its legs in particular are more robust than the earliest sauropodomorphs, and its skull is starting to show similarities to later and larger Triassic sauropodomorphs like Plateosaurus. Bagualosaurus is the biggest dinosaur described from its ecosystem so far, but it was still very much in the shadow of larger reptiles and synapsids, with a lot of growing left to do!
Issi saaneq
Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs
Name meaning: Cold bones
Time: 225 million years ago (Norian stage of the late Triassic)
Location: Fleming Fjord Formation, Greenland Issi made its debut in 2021 as the first non-avian dinosaur species to be named from Greenland! However, the fossils now known as Issi have been known for a while, being excavated during the early 1990s and assigned to the well-known Plateosaurus engelhardti. Further study revealed features of the skull that were, strangely, much closer to those of South American plateosaurids rather than the European Plateosaurus, justifying its classification as a new genus and species! Issi is currently described from two nearly complete skulls, an adult and a juvenile, but three more specimens found in 2012 still have yet to be described. There are potentially further interesting developments in the future for Issi!
DMM Round One Masterpost
