Outline: a typical ornithopod
Secernosaurus
"severed lizard"
Type species Secernosaurus koerneri
- Lived
- 72 to 66 million years ago, Late Cretaceous
- Diet
- Herbivore
- Length
- about 3 m (10 ft)
- Group
- Ornithopods, Hadrosauridae
- Found in
- Argentina
- Named by
- Brett-Surman 1979
Size comparison
To scale
Scale in metersOutline: typical ornithopod shape
Where its fossils were found
The evidence
Today
70 million years ago
Field notes
About Secernosaurus
What it was like
Secernosaurus was a duck-billed plant eater about 3 meters (10 feet) long, small for a hadrosaur. It is known from part of the hips, tail and a few other bones.
Its world
It lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, at the end of the Late Cretaceous, in what is now Argentina. Hadrosaurs mostly lived in the northern continents, and scientists think the ancestors of Secernosaurus crossed from North America to South America over land that joined them for a time.
How it was found
Brett-Surman named Secernosaurus in 1979, from a single find. It was the first hadrosaur named from South America.
Lived alongside
Found in the same rock formations
Close relatives
Other members of Hadrosauridae
Sources: WikidataNamed in: M . K. Brett-Surman. 1979. Phylogeny and palaeobiogeography of hadrosaurian dinosaurs. Nature 277:560-562