Herrerasaurus Characteristics

Herrerasaurus measured 15 feet (5 metres) in length, 3.3 feet (1.1 metres) height at the hip and weighed around 350 kilograms (772 pounds). Herrerasaurus was a lightly built bipedal carnivore, which most likely fed on small and medium-sized animals. It had strong hind limbs with short thighs and rather long feet, which means that it was most likely a swift runner. Its forearms were equipped with sharp claws.

Herrerasaurus had a long tail and a relatively small head compared to its body size. Its skull was long and narrow and lacked nearly all the specializations that characterized later dinosaurs more closely resembling those of more primitive archosaurs such as Euparkeria. It had 5 pairs of fenestrae (skull openings) in its skull, 2 pairs of which were for the eyes and nostrils. These openings helped to reduce the weight of the skull. Herrerasaurus had a flexible joint in the lower jaw, allowing it to slide back and forth to deliver a grasping bite. The jaws were equipped with large serrated teeth for biting and eating flesh, and the neck was slender and flexible.

Herrerasaurus was one of the first dinosaurs and was one of the first animals to embody the distinctive 'carnivorous dinosaur' (theropod-like) shape.

Although Herrerasaurus shared the body shape of the large carnivorous dinosaurs, it lived at a time when dinosaurs were small and insignificant. It was the time of reptiles, not dinosaurs and a major turning point in the Earths ecology. By the end of the Triassic Period, dinosaurs would rule the planet and the mammal-like reptiles would be nearly gone. At the same time, some of the first mammals began to evolve.

Herrerasaurus lived alongside another early dinosaur, Eoraptor, as well as Saurosuchus, a giant land-living crocodylian, in the jungles of Late Triassic South America. Originally found in the Patagonia region of Argentina, one specimen can be found in the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History.

This dinosaur is an enigmatic creature, showing traits that are found in different groups of dinosaurs. It is also similar to much later Jurassic dinosaurs.

Herrerasaurus was named by paleontologist Osvaldo Reig after Victorino Herrera, an Andean goatherd who first noticed its fossils in outcrops near the city of San Juan in 1959. All known specimens of this carnivore have been discovered in rocks of early Carnian age in northwestern Argentina. The type species, Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis, was described by Osvaldo Reig in 1963 and is the only species assigned to the genus. The names Ischisaurus and Frenguellisaurus are synonymous with Herrerasaurus.