Lightning Ridge is a small outback town in north-western New South Wales, Australia. Part of Walgett Shire, Lightning Ridge is situated near the southern border of Queensland, about 6 km (4 mi) east of the Castlereagh Highway. The Lightning Ridge area is a centre of the mining of black opal and other opal gemstones.
Muttaburrasaurus was a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur, which lived in what is now northeastern Australia sometime between 112 and 103 million years ago during the early Cretaceous period. It has been recovered in some analyses as a member of the iguanodontian clade Rhabdodontomorpha. After Kunbarrasaurus, it is Australia's most completely known dinosaur from skeletal remains. It was named after Muttaburra, the site in Queensland, Australia, where it was found.
Qantassaurus is a genus of basal two-legged, plant-eating elasmarian ornithischian dinosaur that lived in Australia about 125-112 million years ago, when the continent was still partly south of the Antarctic Circle. It was described by Patricia Vickers-Rich and her husband Tom Rich in 1999 after a find near Inverloch, and named after Qantas, the Australian airline.
Hypsilophodontidae is a traditionally used family of ornithopod dinosaurs, generally considered invalid today. It historically included many small bodied bipedal neornithischian taxa from around the world, and spanning from the Middle Jurassic until the Late Cretaceous. This inclusive status was supported by some phylogenetic analyses from the 1990s and mid 2000s, although there have also been many finding that the family is an unnatural grouping which should only include the type genus, Hypsilophodon, with the other genera being within clades like Thescelosauridae and Elasmaria. A 2014 analysis by Norman recovered a grouping of Hypsilophodon, Rhabdodontidae and Tenontosaurus, which he referred to as Hypsilophodontia. All other analyses from around the same time have instead found these latter taxa to be within Iguanodontia.
Syngonosaurus is an extinct genus of ornithopod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous. It was an iguanodontian discovered in England and was first described in 1879. The type species, S. macrocercus, was described by British paleontologist Harry Seeley in 1879 and it was later synonymised with Acanthopholis, but the genus was reinstated in a 2020 study, when Syngonosaurus and Eucercosaurus were reinterpreted as basal iguanodontians.
Fulgurotherium is a dubious genus of ornithischian dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) Griman Creek Formation. It lived in what is now Australia.
Dysalotosaurus is a genus of herbivorous iguanodontian dinosaur. It was a dryosaurid iguanodontian, and its fossils have been found in late Kimmeridgian-age rocks of the Tendaguru Formation of Lindi Region in Tanzania. The type and only species of the genus is D. lettowvorbecki. This species was named by Hans Virchow in 1919 in honor of the Imperial German Army Officer, Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. For much of the 20th century the species was referred to the related and approximately contemporary genus Dryosaurus, but newer studies reject this synonymy.
Tianzhenosaurus is a monospecific genus of ankylosaurid dinosaur from the Shanxi Province that lived during the Late Cretaceous in what is now the Huiquanpu Formation. Tianzhenosaurus may represent a junior synonym of Saichania, an ankylosaurine known from the Barun Goyot and Nemegt Formation.
Kangnasaurus is a genus of iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaur found in supposedly Early Cretaceous rocks of South Africa. It is known from a tooth and possibly some postcranial remains found in the early-Aptian Kalahari Deposits Formation. It was probably similar to Dryosaurus.
Antarctopelta is a genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur, a group of large, quadrupedal herbivores, that lived during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period on what is now James Ross Island, Antarctica. Antarctopelta is the only known ankylosaur from Antarctica and a member of Parankylosauria. The only described specimen was found in 1986, the first dinosaur to be found on the continent, by Argentine geologists Eduardo Olivero and Robert Scasso. The fossils were later described in 2006 by paleontologists Leonardo Salgado and Zulma Gasparini, who named the type species A. oliveroi after Olivero.
Rhabdodontidae is a family of herbivorous iguanodontian ornithopod dinosaurs whose earliest stem members appeared in the middle of the Lower Cretaceous. The oldest dated fossils of these stem members were found in the Barremian Castrillo de la Reina Formation of Spain, dating to approximately 129.4 to 125.0 million years ago. With their deep skulls and jaws, Rhabdodontids were similar to large, robust iguanodonts. The family was first proposed by David B. Weishampel and colleagues in 2003. Rhabdodontid fossils have been mainly found in Europe in formations dating to the Late Cretaceous.
Glacialisaurus is a genus of sauropodomorph dinosaur. It lived during the Pliensbachian stage of the Early Jurassic period around 186 to 182 million years ago in what is now the central region of the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica. It is known from two specimens; the holotype, a partial tarsus (ankle) and metatarsus, and a partial left femur. The fossils were collected by a team led by paleontologist William R. Hammer during a 1990–91 field expedition to the Hanson Formation of Antarctica. They were described in 2007, and made the basis of the new genus and species Glacialisaurus hammeri. The genus name translates as “icy” or "frozen lizard”, and the species name honors Hammer.
Genasauria is a clade of extinct beaked, primarily herbivorous dinosaurs. Paleontologist Paul Sereno first named Genasauria in 1986. The name Genasauria is derived from the Latin word gena meaning ‘cheek’ and the Greek word saúra (σαύρα) meaning ‘lizard.’ It is hypothesized that Genasauria had diverged from Lesothosaurus by the Early Jurassic. Cranial features that characterize Genasauria include a medial offset of the maxillary dentition, a sprout-shaped mandibular symphysis, moderately sized coronoid process, and an edentulous anterior portion of the premaxilla. A distinguishing postcranial feature of Genasauria is a pubic peduncle of the ilium that is less robust than the ischial peduncle. Genasauria is commonly divided into Neornithischia and Thyreophora. Neornithischia is characterized by asymmetrical distributions of enamel covering the crowns of the cheek teeth, an open acetabulum, and a laterally protruding ischial peduncle of the ilium. Neornithischia includes ornithopods, pachycephalosaurs, and ceratopsians. Thyreophora is characterized by body armor and includes stegosaurs, ankylosaurs, Scelidosaurus, and Scutellosaurus.
The Griman Creek Formation is a geological formation in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland, Australia whose strata date back to the Albian-Cenomanian stages of the mid-Cretaceous. It is most notable being a major source of opal, found near the town of Lightning Ridge, New South Wales. Alongside the opal opalised fossils are also found, including those of dinosaurs and primitive monotremes.
Bonapartenykus is a monospecific genus of alvarezsauroid dinosaur from Argentina that lived during the Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) in what is now the upper Allen Formation of the Río Negro Province. The type and only species, Bonapartenykus ultimus, is known from a nearly articulated but partial skeleton that was found in close association to two incomplete eggs and several clusters of eggshells belonging to the oogenus Arriagadoolithus. Bonapartenykus was named in 2012 by Federico L. Agnolin, Jaime E. Powell, Fernando E. Novas and Martin Kundrát. Bonapartenykus has an estimated length of 2.5 m (8.2 ft) and weight of 72 kg (159 lb), making it the largest member of the clade Alvarezsauroidea.
Trinisaura is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived during the late Campanian stage of the Upper Cretaceous, around 73 to 72 million years ago in what is now James Ross Island off the coast of northern Antarctica near Patagonia. It is known from a single, incomplete postcranial skeleton that includes several vertebrae, a partial pelvis, and nearly complete right hindlimb. The fossils were collected in 2008 by paleontologists Juan Moly and Rodolfo Coria from the sandstone of the Snow Hill Island Formation. It remained undescribed in the collections of the Museo de La Plata until its description by Coria and colleagues in 2013, being the basis of the novel genus and species Trinisaura santamartaensis. The genus name is to commemorate the efforts of Argentine geologist Trinidad "Trini" Diaz and the Latin root -sauros, meaning "lizard". The species name is after Santa Marta Cove, where the fossils were collected.
Morrosaurus is an extinct genus of herbivorous elasmarian dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous in Antarctica. The only known species is the type Morrosaurus antarcticus.
Burianosaurus is an extinct genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now the Czech Republic, being the first validly named dinosaur from that country. The type species, B. augustai, was named in 2017; the genus name honours the Czech palaeoartist Zdeněk Burian, and the species name honours the Czech palaeontologist Josef Augusta. The holotype specimen is a femur discovered in sediments belonging to the Peruc-Korycany Formation in 2003, which was described as possibly belonging to an iguanodont in 2005.
Rhabdodontomorpha is a clade of basal iguanodont dinosaurs. This group was named in 2016 in the context of the description, based on Spanish findings of an early member of the Rhabdodontidae. A cladistic analysis was conducted in which it was found that Muttaburrasaurus was the sister species of the Rhabdodontidae sensu Weishampel. Therefore, Paul-Emile Dieudonné, Thierry Tortosa, Fidel Torcida Fernández-Baldor, José Ignacio Canudo and Ignacio Díaz-Martínez defined Rhabdodontomorpha as a nodal clade: the group consisting of the last common ancestor of Rhabdodon priscus Matheron, 1869 and Muttaburrasaurus langdoni Bartholomai and Molnar, 1981; and all its descendants. Within the clade Zalmoxes and Mochlodon are also included. The clade is characterized by the following synapomorphies:
Weewarrasaurus is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of the Griman Creek Formation near Lightning Ridge, in New South Wales, Australia. The type and only species is W. pobeni, known from the holotype, an isolated dentary preserved in opal, as well as a secondary referred dentary. It is thought to have co-existed with multiple other ornithopods of different sizes and lineages.
