page_title: Noasaurus
section_title: Discovery and naming
hierarchical_section_title: Noasaurus / Discovery and naming
caption_attribution_description: Left maxilla of Noasaurus (PVL 4061; Fundación Miguel Lillo, Tucumán, Argentina). (scales bar: 5 cm)
context_page_description: Noasaurus is a genus of ceratosaurian theropod dinosaur genus from the late Campanian-Maastrichtian of Argentina. The type and only species is N. leali.
context_section_description: In the mid-seventies, a fragmentary small theropod skeleton was discovered by Jaime Eduardo Powell and José Fernando Bonaparte at the Estancia El Brete-site. In 1977, the discovery was reported in the scientific literature. The type species, Noasaurus leali, was named and described by Bonaparte and Powell in 1980. The generic name begins with a usual abbreviation of noroeste Argentina, "northwest Argentina". The specific name honours the owner of the site, Fidel Leal.
  The holotype, PVL 4061, was found in a layer of the Lecho Formation of Salta Province, Argentina, dating from the late Cretaceous period, more precisely the early Maastrichtian stage, about seventy million years ago. It consists of a partial skeleton with skull. It contains the maxilla, the quadrate bone, two neck vertebrae, two neck ribs, the centrum of a back vertebra, two hand claws, a finger phalanx and the second right metatarsal bone. One of the hand claws was initially identified as a second toe claw. In 2004, it was recognised as a hand claw, at which occasion the second hand claw was referred.
  In 1999, a neck vertebra found at the site, specimen MACM 622, was identified as oviraptorosaurian, a rare proof that the Oviraptorosauria had invaded the Gondwanan continents. In 2007 however, it was reidentified as a noasaurid vertebra, probably belonging to the Noasaurus holotype.
caption: Left maxilla
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2018:06:30 21:37:20", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4167", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "403", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "260"}