Herrerasaurus was named by paleontologist Osvaldo Reig after Victorino Herrera, an Andean goatherd who first noticed its fossils in outcrops near the city of San Juan, Argentina in 1959. The most complete skull, specimen PVSJ 407, and left maxilla PVSJ 053 It is a member of the Herrerasauridae, a family of similar genera that were among the earliest of the dinosaurian evolutionary radiation. However, with the discovery of an almost complete skeleton and skull in 1988, Herrerasaurus has been classified as an early saurischian in most of the phylogenies on the origin and early evolution of dinosaurs. It was hypothesized to be a basal theropod, a basal sauropodomorph, a basal saurischian, or not a dinosaur at all but another type of archosaur. Ischisaurus and Frenguellisaurus are synonyms.įor many years, the classification of Herrerasaurus was unclear because it was known from very fragmentary remains.
The type species, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, was described by Osvaldo Reig in 1963 and is the only species assigned to the genus.
All known fossils of this carnivore have been discovered in the Ischigualasto Formation of Carnian age (late Triassic according to the ICS, dated to 231.4 million years ago) in northwestern Argentina. Its name means "Herrera's lizard", after the rancher who discovered the first specimen in 1958 in South America. This genus was one of the earliest dinosaurs from the fossil record. Herrerasaurus is a genus of saurischian dinosaur from the Late Triassic period.
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