a possible elasmarian ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina.
Pronunciation: SEK-ten-SOR-us
Meaning: Island lizard
Author/s: Ibiricu
et al. (
2019)
Synonyms: None known
First Discovery: Chubut Province, Argentina
Acta Ordinal: #1010
Sektensaurus sanjuanboscoi
(Island Lizard, honouring San Juan Bosco University)Etymology
Sektensaurus is derived from the Tehuelche "sekten" (island) and the Greek "sauros" (lizard).
The
species epithet,
sanjuanboscoi, honours the Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco.
Discovery
The first remains of
Sektensaurus were discovered in the Lago Colhué Huapí Formation (Golfo San Jorge Basin),
within a 3m area on one of the Lake Colhué Huapi islands that appear during periods of low water level, Chubut province, Argentina, by Marcello Luna in 1993. In 2017, Colhue Huapi Lake
receded, enabling researchers from UNPSJB to ride motorbikes and all-terrain vehicles to the island where they managed to recover more fossils.
The
holotype (UNPSJB-PV 1054) is is a disarticulated but associated partial skeleton, consisting of four partial back bones (UNPSJB-PV 1054/2—5), a block of three fused and two incomplete hip vertebrae (UNPSJB-PV 1054/6, UNPSJB-PV 1054/7—8), the main body of eight tail vertebrae (UNPSJB-PV 1054/9—16),
one end both ends of a left upper arm (UNPSJB-PV 1054/17 and UNPSJB-PV 1054/19),
both ends one end of a right upper arm (UNPSJB-PV 1054/18
and UNPSJB-PV 1054/19), and parts of a left thigh (UNPSJB-PV1054/21),
a right forearm bone (UNPSJB-PV 1054/20),
a left shin (UNPSJB-PV 1054/22) and a left calf (UNPSJB-PV 1054/23).
Fragmentary material described by Luna
et al. in 2003 (UNPSJB-PV 973: a left hip bone) and Ibiricu
et al. 2010 (UNPSJB-PV 960: back and tail vertebrae, a right ankle and metatarsals) likely to belong to the holotype individual. The holotype initially included a skull bone (frontal), but that was reidentified as the underside of a turtle shell by Australian palaeontologist Stephen Poropat, who also recognised that what were originally listed as a "left tibia" and "right radius" (a left shin and a right forearm bone) were instead a metatarsal III and an ischium bone from the pelvis, and one end of a "right upper arm" was from the left side of the animal.
• Luna M, Casal G, Martínez R, Lamanna M, Ibiricu L and Ivany E (2003) "La presencia
de un Ornithopoda (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) en el Miembro Superior de la
Formacion Bajo Barreal (Campaniano-Maastrichtiano?) del sur del Chubut".
Ameghiniana, 40: 61R.
• Ibiricu LM, Martínez RD, Lamanna MC, Casal GA, Luna M, Harris JD and Lacovara KD (2010) "A Medium-Sized Ornithopod (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Upper Cretaceous Bajo Barreal Formation of Lago Colhué Huapi, Southern Chubut Province, Argentina".
Annals of the Carnegie Museum, 79(1): 39-50. DOI: 10.2992/007.079.0103.
• Poropat SF (2019) "The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust of Australia. Report by Dr Stephen F. Poropat. 2017 Churchill Fellow".
Winston Churchill Trust.
• Ibiricu LM, Casal GA, Martínez RD, Luna M, Canale JI, Álvarez BN and González Riga B (2019) "A new ornithopod dinosaur (Dinosauria; Ornithischia) from the Late Cretaceous of central Patagonia".
Cretaceous Research, 98: 276–291. DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2019.02.001.
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To cite this page:
Atkinson, L.
"
SEKTENSAURUS :: from DinoChecker's dinosaur archive".
‹
http://www.dinochecker.com/dinosaurs/SEKTENSAURUS›. Web access: 04th Aug 2026.
