Anabisetia

Anabisetia ( ) is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Period of Patagonia, South America. It was a small bipedal herbivore, around long. Discovery Argentine paleontologists Rodolfo Coria and Jorge Orlando Calvo named Anabisetia in 2002. The generic name honors the late Ana Maria Biset, an influential archeologist from Neuquén Province in Argentina, where the remains of this animal were found. The one named species is called A. saldiviai, after Roberto Saldivia Blanco, a local farmer who had discovered the fossils in 1985 and brought them to the attention of science in 1993. The finds had already been reported in the scientific literature in 1996. There are four specimens known, all listed in the original 2002 description. The holotype, MCF-PVPH 74, is the most complete of the four. It consists of fragmentary skull material, including a partial braincase and both dentary (lower jaw) bones, as well as a complete forelimb from shoulder to hand, a complete hindlimb and foot, and representative vertebrae from all sections of the spinal column. The other three specimens are less complete, but include elements not seen in the holotype, including more vertebrae, a complete pelvis and a nearly complete, articulated tail. Two specimens are the paratypes, MCF-PVPH-75 and MCF-PVPH-76. The fourth, MCF-PVPH-77, is referred to the species. When all four specimens are considered, the skeleton is more or less completely known except for the skull. These specimens are housed at the Museo Carmen Funes in Plaza Huincul, Argentina. All four specimens were discovered at a locality called Cerro Bayo Mesa, thirty kilometers south of Plaza Huincul in the Neuquén province of Argentina. This locality is part of the Cerro Lisandro Formation, which is a geologic formation within the Rio Limay subgroup of the Neuquén Group. The sediments in this formation preserve a swamp which existed from the late Cenomanian through early Turonian stages of the Late Cretaceous Period, or about 95 to 92 million years ago. Description Anabisetia was a small bipedal herbivore. In 2010 Gregory S. Paul estimated its length at two meters, its weight at twenty kilograms. The describers established several unique traits of the species. At the back of the head, the connection with the neck, the occipital condyle, pointed rather downwards.