Open Paleo

Nqwebasaurus

de Klerk et al., 2000 en-KWEB-ah-SAWR-us

From Xhosa 'Nqweba', the local name for the Kirkwood district in the Eastern Cape of South Africa where the specimen was found, combined with Greek 'sauros' meaning 'lizard'.

143.1–132.6 million years ago Berriasian–Valanginian, Early Cretaceous
Early Cretaceous stages

Nqwebasaurus is a probable ornithomimosaurian theropod from the Early Cretaceous of South Africa. The genus contains a single species, Nqwebasaurus thwazi, representing the oldest known coelurosaur in Africa and the evidence for basal coelurosaurian dinosaurs inhabiting Gondwana since the earliest Cretaceous period.

Under dispute

The placement of Nqwebasaurus is contested. Most recent analyses recover it as the basalmost ornithomimosaur (Choiniere and colleagues, 2012; Serrano-Brañas and colleagues, 2020), but it has also been recovered outside Ornithomimosauria, near the base of Alvarezsauroidea (Hartman and colleagues, 2019), and it was originally described as a coelurosaur of uncertain affinities (de Klerk and colleagues, 2000). It is placed conservatively as the basalmost ornithomimosaur.

Diagnosis

  1. Ginglymus of metacarpal I very robust and asymmetrical with greatly enlarged lateral (ulnar) condyle
  2. Manual ungual phalanx of digit I elongate (four times proximal depth) and mediolaterally compressed
  3. Fibular shaft reduced distally to thin splint
  4. Metatarsal IV reduced in width to approximately half that of metatarsal III

Species

Nqwebasaurus thwazi de Klerk et al., 2000

Type species

From the ancient Xhosa word 'thwazi' meaning 'fast runner'.

Holotype
AM 6040 , Albany Museum
Material
Fragmentary skull and nearly complete articulated skeleton: cervical vertebrae, both pectoral girdles and forelimbs, partial femora, both tibiae and fibulae, complete pedes, pubic shafts, gastralia, and gastroliths in abdominal region.
Horizon
upper Kirkwood Formation, Berriasian–Valanginian, Early Cretaceous , 143.1–132.6 million years ago
Locality
17 km west of Kirkwood village, Eastern Cape, South Africa

References

  1. de Klerk, W. J.; Forster, C. A.; Sampson, S. D.; Chinsamy, A.; Ross, C. F. (2000). A new coelurosaurian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of South Africa. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 20(2): 324-332. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2000)020[0324:ancdft]2.0.co;2 deklerk2000a
  2. Paul, G. S. (2024). The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs (3rd ed.). Princeton University Press.

    Source of the appearance features.

    paul2024a
  3. Serrano-Brañas, C. I.; Espinosa-Chávez, B.; Maccracken, S. A.; Gutiérrez-Blando, C.; de León-Dávila, C.; Ventura, J. F. (2020). Paraxenisaurus normalensis, a large deinocheirid ornithomimosaur from the Cerro del Pueblo Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Coahuila, Mexico. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 101. Elsevier BV. doi:10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102610

    Included Nqwebasaurus in ornithomimosaur phylogenetic analysis of Paraxenisaurus.

    serrano-brañas2020a
  4. Hartman, S.; Mortimer, M.; Wahl, W. R.; Lomax, D. R.; Lippincott, J.; Lovelace, D. M. (2019). A new paravian dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of North America supports a late acquisition of avian flight. PeerJ 7: e7247. PeerJ. doi:10.7717/peerj.7247

    Recovered Nqwebasaurus near the base of Alvarezsauroidea in paravian analysis.

    hartman2019a
  5. Choiniere, J.; Forster, C.; De Klerk, W. (2012). New information on Nqwebasaurus thwazi, a coelurosaurian theropod from the Early Cretaceous Kirkwood Formation in South Africa. Journal of African Earth Sciences 71-72: 1-17. doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2012.05.005

    Recovered Nqwebasaurus as the basalmost ornithomimosaur.

    choiniere2012a