#nyasasaurus

[alex-fictus]

N is for...?

All of the N names in my Paleo Party! Are there any I'm missing? Surprisingly thus far I only have Mesozoic critters in this section!

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[rochnan]

Sketchdump! I'm cleaning up a bit and these are the dinosaur sketches I found. For the most part I was trying to have some fun exploring designs, not going for accuracy.

Also, does anyone look at the image descriptions I write? I like doing them, but I wonder if people who already come for images actually use them.

[rolethelaglord]

pluto and charon as nyasasaurus!

nyasasaurus was a genus of avemetatarsalian archosaur from the middle triassic manda formation of tanzania! (avemetatarsalian basically means they are more closely related to birds than to crocodillians!) these little three foot critters were herbivores! neat little guys :)

their name literally means "lake nyasa lizard"

[i-draws-dinosaurs]

What's the earliest known *definitive* dinosaur?

Currently, that would be Staurikosaurus!

Staurikosauus is from the Lower Santa Maria Formation, and has been dated to 233.23 million years old, making in about 1.5 million years older than other very early dinosaurs like Eoraptor and Herrerasaurus from the Ischigualasto Formation!

However, if we want to delve into questionable dinosaurs, there's a genus named Nyasasaurus that is known from very fragmentary remains, and may or may not be a dinosaur!

Nyasasaurus is from the Manda Formation in Tanzania, which seems to have been roughly 235-240 million years old, although dating is a bit shaky with this one. If Nyasasaurus is really a dinosaur it would be the oldest known, but again we don't have enough of the skeleton to be sure! The Wikipedia reconstruction of it literally looks like this, to give you an idea of how uncertain its anatomy is:

[unscrupulousartist]

A 10m longboi

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Nyasasaurus parringtoni

By José Carlos Cortés on @quetzalcuetzpalin-art​

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Name: Nyasasaurus parringtoni

Name Meaning: Lake Nyasa Reptile

First Described: 2013

Described By: Nesbitt et al. 

Classification: Avemetatarsalia, Ornithodira, Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dinosauria?

Nyasasaurus is one of the more fascinating fragmentary animals simply because of its fragmentary nature - and its age. Nyasasaurus is from the Manda Formation of Tanzania, living about 243 million years ago, in the Anisian age of the Middle Triassic. Now, this wouldn’t be very notable - Asilisaurus is also that age - except that it is uncertain what to classify Nyasasaurus as. It is is known from a humerus and vertebrae, and cannot be confidently classified as a Dinosaur, or a Dinosauriform like Asilisaurus. If it is a Dinosaur, it pushes back the origin of Dinosaurs long before they were first thought to evolve - if it is not a Dinosaur, it is simply another piece in the puzzle that is the origin of this clade of animals - being as close to a dinosaur as one can get without actually being a dinosaur (ie, the sister animal to the group). 

By Jack Wood on @thewoodparable

If Nyasasaurus is a dinosaur, it would have predated all other known dinosaurs by about 10 to 15 million years. If it is a Dinosaur - and not just closely related to the ancestor of dinosaurs - then, when estimating the origin of dinosaurs, it is found that Dinosaurs were actually likely to have evolved in the Early Triassic, sometime between 252 and 247 million years ago, directly after the Permian Triassic extinction. This is much earlier than if Nyasasaurus is simply a sister taxon to Dinosaurs, where dinosaurs would have evolved in the Middle Triassic. It is even possible, if Nyasasaurus is a dinosaur, that Dinosaurs evolved in the Permian - right in the middle of the extinction, perhaps filling niches as they emptied rapidly. 

By Scott Reid on @drawingwithdinosaurs

At the very least, Nyasasaurus as a Dinosaur indicates that Dinosauromorphs - and, perhaps, Avemetatarsalians as a whole - evolved in the chaos of that extinction, filling niches and diversifying rapidly before the Paleozoic was even over. Given that Nyasasaurus was most recently found to be a Dinosaur, then it seems like this hypothesis is worth thorough consideration - though, of course, more complete remains of Nyasasaurus could change it back to being sister to Dinosaurs. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyasasaurus

Lloyd, G. T., D. W. Bapst, M. Friedman, K. E. Davis. 2017. Probabilistic divergence time estimation without branch lengths: dating the origin of dinosaurs, avian flight and crown birds. Biology Letters 12: 20160609. 

Barown, M. G., D. B. Norman, P. M. Barrett. 2017. A new hypothesis of dinosaur relationships and early dinosaur evolution. Nature 453: 501-506. 

Shout out goes to @thea-wood!

[alex-fictus]

My Mesozoic is Blue 💙💙💙

Nyasasaurus - Hatzegopteryx - Maiasaurus

Liopleurodon - Unenlagia - Qianzhousaurus

Sarcosuchus - Sinomacrops - Vallibonavenatrix

Majungasaurus - Maip macrothorax - Arkansaurus

Gastonia - Styracosaurus - Ankylosaurus

Troodon (?) - Megalosaurus** - Brachiosaurus

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**Megalosaurus is in my updates list. Gotta take care of those broken wrists by the time their discovery day comes around next year!

[alex-fictus]

Triassic Critters!

251 to 215 million years ago, rising from the ashes of the P-T extinction event and leading into the Mesozoic with pride!

Arizonasaurus - Drepanosaurus - Postosuchus

Herrerasaurus - Nyasasaurus - Eoraptor

Shastasaurus - Nundasuchus - Thalattoarchon

Nothosaurus - Longisquama - Tanystropheus

Broomistega - Triassic Cuddle - Thinaxodon

Mastodonsaurus - Lystrosaurus - Henodus

Plateosaurus - Placerias - Coelophysis

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Planned or in the works: Silesaurus, Eudimorphodon, Lisowicia, Procompsognathus