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In the annals of paleoart, there are two names that tower over all the others. There is Charles R. Knight, of course, but right next to him is Zdeněk Burian - the Czech artist who did just as much as Knight to set the 20th century image of what dinosaurs were like. Now, four decades after his death, Burian has a new dinosaur named in his honor from the strata of his home country.
If Burian himself were to do a restoration of the roughly 95 million year old dinosaur, he'd have to borrow from related species to fill in the missing parts. Indeed, Burianosaurus is so far only known from a single femur, or thigh bone. All the same, the femur is different enough from other finds that paleontologist Daniel Madzia and colleagues make the case that it's something new, not to mention that Burianosaurus is currently the only non-avian dinosaur known from its particular slice of time and space in Central Europe.
So what kind of dinosaur was Burianosaurus? Madzia and coauthors categorize it as an ornithopod - one of the bipedal, generally unornamented dinosaurs that are generally treated as walking fodder for the carnivores of their time. (I feel as if ornithopod and oreodont experts need to form a club for under-appreciated fossils.) Exactly what it looked like will depend on future finds, but the femur is a start and a reminder that there is more yet to be discovered about these oft-overlooked dinosaurs.
The femur of Burianosaurus. Credit: Madzia et al 2017
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Name: Burianosaurus augustai
Meaning: Burianosaurus means "Burian's lizard" in honor of Czech paleoartist Zdeněk Burian, and augustai honors Czech paleontologist Josef Augusta.
Age: Cretaceous, around 95 million years ago.
Where in the world?: Near Mezholezy, Czech Republic.
What sort of organism?: An ornithopod dinosaur.
How much of the organism’s is known?: A femur.
References:
Madzia, D. Boyd, C., Mazuch, M. 2017. A basal ornithopod dinosaur from the Cenomanian of the Czech Republic. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. doi: 10.1080/14772019.2017.1371258
Previous Paleo Profiles:
The Light-Footed Lizard The Maoming Cat Knight’s Egyptian Bat The La Luna Snake The Rio do Rasto Tooth Bob Weir's Otter Egypt's Canine Beast The Vastan Mine Tapir Pangu's Wing The Dawn Megamouth The Genga Lizard The Micro Lion The Mystery Titanosaur The Echo Hunter The Lo Hueco Titan The Three-Branched Cicada The Monster of Minden The Pig-Footed Bandicoot Hayden's Rattlesnake Demon The Evasive Ostrich Seer The Paradoxical Mega Shark The Tiny Beardogs The Armored Fish King North America's Pangolin The Invisible-Tusked Elephant The Mud Dragon The Spike-Toothed Salmon The Dream Coast Crocodile Buriol's Robber Ozimek's Flyer The Northern Naustoceratopsian The High Arctic Flyer The Tomatillo From the End of the World The Short-Faced Hyena The Mighty Traveler from Egg Mountain Keilhau's Ichthyosaur Mexico's Ancient Horned Face Mauricio Fernández's Plesiosaur New Zealand's Giant Dawn Penguin The Orange Sea Lion Mongolia's Ginkgo Cousin The Geni River Frog Isabel Berry's Dinosaur The Whale Caiman The Moab Lizard Yang Zhongjian's Lizard The Little Anubis The Shuangbai Lizard The Wyvern Dinosaur The "Need Helmet" Dinosaur The Jianianhua Dragon The Liaoning Hunter The Dalian Lizard Crompton's Aleodon Jenkins' Amphibian Serpent From the Chinle The Large Ancestor Lizard The Crown Tooth Currie's Alberta Hunter The Elephant Bird Mimic The Crested Thief The Hiding Hunter The Horned Lizard The Silk Bird The Sieve-Toothed Plesiosaur The Defenseless Snout
