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Description

Named by Tom and Patricia Rich, 1999
Diet: Herbivore (Plants such as ferns)
Length: 6 feet (1.8 meters)
Weight: 100 lb
Region: Victoria Southeastern Australia (Wonthaggi Formation)
Age: 120-115 million BC (Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous)
Enemies: Various indeterminate theropods, such as a possible allosaurid and dromaeosaurid that were known from fragmentary remains; Koolasuchus, a 13-foot late-surviving temnospondyl amphibian.

Discovered in 1996 by a dig team from Monash University and the National Museum of Victoria on the beach of the Bunurong Marine Park near the town of Inverloch in southeastern Australia and named in 1999 by paleontologists Tom and Patricia Rich, Qantassaurus was a small, bipedal ornithopod or basal euornithopod dinosaur (originally a hypsilophodontid) that lived 115 million years ago, during the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous period. It was one of the few dinosaur species to be found living in higher latitudes.

It was named after Qantas, the Australian airline.

Sadly, Qantassaurus is known only from jaw fragments. But these are foreshortened compared to related species, so its face was short and stubby. It had ten teeth in each lower jaw and it probably had a horny beak. It possessed leaf-shaped teeth back in the cheek, which were shed as they wore down and replaced by new teeth. The teeth had eight distinctive vertical ridges on the outer side with a single larger primary ridge in the center.

A fast, agile, two-legged animal, Qantassaurus was probably a browser, feeding on the ferns and other plant and like modern-day deer and gazelle, it would ran away from predators, such as an unnamed allosaurid that was known from fragmentary remains.

During the time this dinosaur was alive, Australia was stuck to Antarctica, part of the ancient continent of Gondwana and remained in the Antarctic Circle about 75 degrees South. Inverloch, where this dinosaur lived in, was several hundred miles away from the South Pole and was a floodplain within a great rift valley, formed as Australia was starting rip away from Antarctica. There were no polar ice caps back then, instead it was a dense wooded forest of conifers, pines, gingkoes, cycadophytes and ferns and horsetails in the under story. Most of these plants were evergreen and food would've been available. The climate was much warmer than it is today, but during winter, there would've been 3 months of total darkness, with temperatures between -6 to + 5 degrees Celsius (21 to 37 degrees Fahrenheit).

However, one interpretation of the fossil material is that small euornithopods, like Qantassaurus, had adaptations to thrive and adapt to the cold conditions. Bone growth of presumed related taxa shows that they were active all year round and the structure of these bones also suggests a warm-blooded (endothermic) metabolism, which would help maintain its body heat.

Note: Most of it is based on home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj/q… Coloration based on the Barred owl

Description

Named by Tom and Patricia Rich, 1999
Diet: Herbivore (Plants such as ferns)
Length: 6 feet (1.8 meters)
Weight: 100 lb
Region: Victoria Southeastern Australia (Wonthaggi Formation)
Age: 120-115 million BC (Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous)
Enemies: Various indeterminate theropods, such as a possible allosaurid and dromaeosaurid that were known from fragmentary remains; Koolasuchus, a 13-foot late-surviving temnospondyl amphibian.

Discovered in 1996 by a dig team from Monash University and the National Museum of Victoria on the beach of the Bunurong Marine Park near the town of Inverloch in southeastern Australia and named in 1999 by paleontologists Tom and Patricia Rich, Qantassaurus was a small, bipedal ornithopod or basal euornithopod dinosaur (originally a hypsilophodontid) that lived 115 million years ago, during the Aptian stage of the Early Cretaceous period. It was one of the few dinosaur species to be found living in higher latitudes.

It was named after Qantas, the Australian airline.

Sadly, Qantassaurus is known only from jaw fragments. But these are foreshortened compared to related species, so its face was short and stubby. It had ten teeth in each lower jaw and it probably had a horny beak. It possessed leaf-shaped teeth back in the cheek, which were shed as they wore down and replaced by new teeth. The teeth had eight distinctive vertical ridges on the outer side with a single larger primary ridge in the center.

A fast, agile, two-legged animal, Qantassaurus was probably a browser, feeding on the ferns and other plant and like modern-day deer and gazelle, it would ran away from predators, such as an unnamed allosaurid that was known from fragmentary remains.

During the time this dinosaur was alive, Australia was stuck to Antarctica, part of the ancient continent of Gondwana and remained in the Antarctic Circle about 75 degrees South. Inverloch, where this dinosaur lived in, was several hundred miles away from the South Pole and was a floodplain within a great rift valley, formed as Australia was starting rip away from Antarctica. There were no polar ice caps back then, instead it was a dense wooded forest of conifers, pines, gingkoes, cycadophytes and ferns and horsetails in the under story. Most of these plants were evergreen and food would've been available. The climate was much warmer than it is today, but during winter, there would've been 3 months of total darkness, with temperatures between -6 to + 5 degrees Celsius (21 to 37 degrees Fahrenheit).

However, one interpretation of the fossil material is that small euornithopods, like Qantassaurus, had adaptations to thrive and adapt to the cold conditions. Bone growth of presumed related taxa shows that they were active all year round and the structure of these bones also suggests a warm-blooded (endothermic) metabolism, which would help maintain its body heat.

Note: Most of it is based on home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj/q… Coloration based on the Barred owl