Құрып кеткен динозаврлар туысы - Leaellynasaura

Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Leaellynasaura (meaning "Leaellyn's lizard") is a genus of small herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs from the Albian stage of the Early Cretaceous (dated to between 118 and 110 million years ago), first discovered in Dinosaur Cove, Australia. The only known species is Leaellynasaura amicagraphica. It was described in 1989, and named after Leaellyn Rich, the daughter of the Australian palaeontologist couple Tom Rich and Patricia Vickers Rich who discovered it. The specific name, amicagraphica, translates to "friend writing" and honours both the Friends of the Museum of Victoria and the National Geographic Society for their support of Australian paleontology.

Leaellynasaura is a relatively small dinosaur, about 90 centimeters (3 feet) in length. However, in a subsequent revision of fossil material attributed to Leaellynasaura Herne (2013) could not confidently assign the postcranial skeletons with long tails (or indeed any fossils other than the holotype incomplete cranium MV P185991, right maxilla MV P186352 and left maxillary tooth MV P186412, all from late Aptian early Albian Eumeralla Formation) to Leaellynasaura amicagraphica.

Leaellynasaura has been variously described as a hypsilophodontid, a primitive iguanodontian or a primitive ornithischian (Genasauria). Recent studies have not found a consensus; some analyses describe it as a non iguanodontian ornithopod, whereas others describe it as a basal neornithischian. A 2019 study recovered it as a member of Elasmaria. Position according to Herne et al., 2019: However, the relatively large orbits of this specimen were more recently interpreted as representing characteristically large eyes of a juvenile individual, rather than any low light adaptation.