Tawa (dinosaur)

Drawing from Tawa

• Ghost Ranch (New Mexico, USA)

Tawa is a genus theropod dinosaurs. He lived in North America about 215 million years ago. In 2004, a partial skeleton, and in 2006 two nearly complete skeletons have been found. The discovery suggests that the earliest dinosaurs in primeval continent Gondwana (present-day South America) developed and spread from there. The only way is Tawa hallae that. , 2009 by Nesbitt et al was named. The species name honors Ruth Hall, the founder of the Ghost Ranch Museum.

Description

The holotype probably originates from a young animal. The Zwischenkieferbein looks similar to the Coelopysiden. It is toothless. The skull differs from that of the Neotheropoden by the high upper jaw, as in Herrerasaurus. The slim body also looked similar to those of Coelophysiden. The teeth were small. It is estimated that Tawa was about 2 feet long.

Discovery

The fossils were found in the Ghost Ranch (New Mexico, USA), 2004. The holotype, cataloged as GR 241 is a fairly complete skull and skeleton that was from a young animal. In the Ghost Ranch still were at least seven other copies, one of these animals is also almost complete. An isolated femur indicates that the adult animals were approximately 30% greater than juveniles. Studies show that the fossils of Tawa are about 215 million years old. Tawa was described in 2009 by an American paleontologist team of the American Museum of Natural History under the direction of Sterling J. Nesbitt. The description was published in the journal Science.

System

A study showed that Tawa is more developed than previously known theropods, Eoraptor or Herrerasaurus like. Tawa is provided as a sister taxon of Neotheropoda.

Staurikosaurus

Herrerasaurus

Chindesaurus

Eoraptor

Tawa

Neotheropoda

Documents

• Nesbitt, S. J.; Smith, N. D.; Irmis, R. B.; Turner, A. H.; Downs, A. and Norell, M. A. ( 2009). A complete skeleton of a Late Triassic saurischian and the early evolution of dinosaurs. In: Science 326 ( 5959 ). Pp. 1530-1533, DOI: 10.1126/science.1180350 (PDF), Scientific American

• Theropods
• Theropods