Aratasaurus museunacionali
Aratasaurus is an extinct genus of basal coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian) Romualdo Formation of Brazil. The genus contains a single species, A. museunacionali, known from a partial right leg. Aratasaurus represents the only tetrapod fossil known from the lower levels of the Romualdo Formation.

Juliana Manso Sayão, Antônio Álamo Feitosa Saraiva, Arthur Souza Brum, Renan Alfredo Machado Bantim, Rafael Cesar Lim… · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- AratasaurusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 3.1 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 113.2 Mya and 110.1 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Aratasaurus museunacionali on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
1 occurrences- Early Cretaceous100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
- Romualdo Formation · Santana Group1
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The named rock units Aratasaurus museunacionali has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Aratasaurus museunacionali and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Aratasaurus museunacionali and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
No other named taxon is catalogued from that site.
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Aratasaurus museunacionali, and this reads all of them.
Entered from
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Aratasaurus museunacionali
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Juliana Manso Sayão, Antônio Álamo Feitosa Saraiva, Arthur Souza Brum, Renan Alfredo Machado Bantim, Rafael Cesar Lim…
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Aratasaurus”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAratasaurus through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sayão et al. 2020