Diluvicursor
Name:
Diluvicursor
(Flood runner).
Phonetic: Di-lu-ve-cursor.
Named By: M. C. Herne, A. M. Tait, V.
Weisbecker,
M. Hall, J. P. Nair, M. Cleeland & S. W.
Salisbury - 2018.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Ornithischia, Ornithopoda.
Species: D. pickeringi
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Uncertain, but roughly estimated at 2.3
meters long for adults.
Known locations: Australia - Eumeralla Formation.
Time period: Albian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial remains
including lower leg bones and tail.
Diluvicursor
is a genus of small ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now
Australia during the early Cretaceous. Description of the genus was
based upon a mostly complete tail and lower leg bones that were
preserved flat on a slab of rock. These have been identified to
have come from a juvenile animal, not yet fully grown. When
compared to other more complete genera of small ornithopod dinosaurs
such as Hypsilophodon,
this came to a total
estimated size of a
little over a meter. A second vertebra from an older and possibly
fully grown individual Diluvicursor has also been
found, and when
the other remains are scaled up to match, and again using
knowledge from other genera to fill the missing parts, an estimated
size of over two meters was established for the genus.
Small
ornithopod dinosaurs like Diluvicursor are usually
established as
herbivores (though an omnivorous diet has at times been suggested
for some genera), feeding upon low growing plants and relying upon
a combination of speed, agility and sharp senses to stay alive.
Although at the time of writing not known from the same fossil
formation as Diluvicursor, megaraptoran dinosaurs
like
Australovenator
are known to have been active in Australia earlier in
the Cretaceous, and might have still been present in the time of
Diluvicursor.
Further reading
- A new small-bodied ornithopod (Dinosauria, Ornithischia) from
a deep, high-energy Early Cretaceous river of the
Australian-Antarctic rift system. - PeerJ 5:e4113. - M. C.
Herne, A. M. Tait, V. Weisbecker, M. Hall, J. P.
Nair, M. Cleeland & S. W. Salisbury - 2018.
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