''Minimocursor'' (meaning "smallest runner") is a genus of basal

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 insi ...

n dinosaur from the

Late Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time scale, geologic time from 161.5 ± 1.0 to 143.1 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic stratum, strata.Owen ...

Phu Kradung Formation of Thailand. The type species is ''Minimocursor phunoiensis''.

Discovery and naming

The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

specimen, PRC 150, was excavated in 2012 and prepared for the next five years. It consists of a postcranial specimen that is more than 50% complete. Other referred specimens include an isolated dentary briefly described in 2014 and pes material. Several more specimens remain unprepared as of 2023. These bones were considered to represent a new genus and species, ''Minimocursor phunoiensis'', in 2023. The generic name, "''Minimocursor''", combines the

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

words "minimus", meaning "the smallest", in reference to the holotype's small size, and "cursor", meaning "runner". The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, "''phunoiensis''", refers to the excavation site, Phu Noi.

Description

The not-fully-grown holotype has been estimated as long, similar to the size of '' Agilisaurus''. Larger remains hint that the fully-grown animal would have been long.

Phylogeny

Manitkoon ''et al.'' (2023) added ''Minimocursor'' to a phylogenetic analysis, adding the holotype, pes, and dentary as separate operational taxonomic units (OTUs). All three claded together at the base of the Neornithischia, outside

Thescelosauridae Thescelosauridae is a clade of neornithischians from the Cretaceous of East Asia and North America. The group was originally used as a name by Charles M. Sternberg in 1937, but was not formally defined until 2013, where it was used by Brown and ...

and

Cerapoda 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 ins ...

, making it the first basal neornithischian known from Southeast Asia. Their cladogram is shown below:

Palaeoenvironment

The Phu Kradung Formation preserves a diverse assemblage of animals. ''Minimocursor'' would have lived alongside several fish and turtles, an indeterminate pterosaur, an indeterminate

stegosaur Stegosauria is a group of herbivorous ornithischian dinosaurs that lived during the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. Stegosaurian fossils have been found mostly in the Northern Hemisphere (North America, Europe and Asia), Africa and South A ...

, an indeterminate metriacanthosaurid, an indeterminate mamenchisaurid, and the thalattosuchian '' Indosinosuchus''.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q120640987 Neornithischia Dinosaur genera Tithonian dinosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2023 Dinosaurs of Thailand