''Burianosaurus'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

ornithopod Ornithopoda () is a clade of ornithischian dinosaurs, called ornithopods (), that started out as small, bipedal running grazers and grew in size and numbers until they became one of the most successful groups of herbivores in the Cretaceous world ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

that lived in what is now the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

(it was found in 2003 near the city of

Kutná Hora Kutná Hora (; medieval Czech: ''Hory Kutné''; german: Kuttenberg) is a town in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 20,000 inhabitants. The centre of Kutná Hora, including the Sedlec Abbey and its ossuary, was designa ...

), 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 Paleoart (also spelled palaeoart, paleo-art, or paleo art) is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence. Works of paleoart may be representations of fossil remains or imagined depiction ...

Zdeněk Burian Zdeněk Michael František Burian (11 February 1905 in Kopřivnice, Moravia, Austria-Hungary – 1 July 1981 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech painter, book illustrator and palaeoartist whose work played a central role in the development of p ...

, and the species name honours the Czech palaeontologist Josef Augusta. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

specimen is a femur discovered in sediments belonging to the Peruc-Korycany Formation in 2003, which was described as possibly belonging to an

iguanodont Iguanodontia (the iguanodonts) is a clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. Some members include ''Camptosaurus'', ''Dryosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', '' Tenontosaurus'', and the hadrosaurids or "duck-bil ...

in 2005.

Classification

When the fossil was first described in 2005, it was said to be most morphologically similar to Early Cretaceous members of

Iguanodontidae Iguanodontidae is a family of iguanodontians belonging to Styracosterna, a derived clade within Ankylopollexia. Characterized by their elongated maxillae, they were herbivorous and typically large in size. This family exhibited locomotive dynam ...

, as opposed to later taxa such as ''

Rhabdodon ''Rhabdodon'' (meaning "fluted tooth") is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in Europe approximately 70-66 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous. It is similar in build to a very robust "hypsilophodont" (non-iguanodont ornithopod), thou ...

''. Madzia ''et al.'' (2017), the study which named the genus, ran two

phylogenetic analyses In biology, phylogenetics (; from Greek φυλή/ φῦλον [] "tribe, clan, race", and wikt:γενετικός, γενετικός [] "origin, source, birth") is the study of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups o ...

to test the relationships of the taxon. The first, based on the matrix of MacDonald ''et al.'' (2012), found it within the

clade A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...

Rhabdodontomorpha 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 fou ...

, with support very strong for it being outside of

Ankylopollexia Ankylopollexia is an extinct clade of ornithischian dinosaurs that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Late Cretaceous. It is a derived clade of iguanodontian ornithopods and contains the subgroup Styracosterna. The name stems from the Greek word ...

. The analysis based on the Boyd ''et al.'' (2015) matrix, which they considered more strongly supported, due to better taxon sampling of basal ornithopods and

neornithischia Neornithischia ("new ornithischians") is a clade of the dinosaur order Ornithischia. It is the sister group of the Thyreophora within the clade Genasauria. Neornithischians are united by having a thicker layer of asymmetrical enamel on the inside ...

ns, found it to be one of the most basal ornithopods, sister to the

Iguanodontia Iguanodontia (the iguanodonts) is a clade of herbivorous dinosaurs that lived from the Middle Jurassic to Late Cretaceous. Some members include ''Camptosaurus'', ''Dryosaurus'', ''Iguanodon'', ''Tenontosaurus'', and the hadrosaurids or "duck-bi ...

. Their

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an evolutionary tree because it does not show how ancestors are related to d ...

is reproduced below:

References

Ornithopods Fossil taxa described in 2017 Dinosaurs of Europe Ornithischian genera {{ornithopod-stub

Classification

See also

References