Oxalaia
genus of reptiles (fossil) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oxalaia was a large predatory dinosaur. It lived during the Upper Cretaceous of what is now Brazil, sometime between 100.5 to 93.9 million years ago. Oxalaia is known only from two bones of the skull, which were discovered in 1999. The animal was named in 2011 by a group of Brazilian palaeontologists.
Quick Facts Scientific classification, Type species ...
Oxalaia | |
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Holotype snout in multiple views | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Family: | †Spinosauridae |
Subfamily: | †Spinosaurinae |
Genus: | †Oxalaia Kellner et al., 2011 |
Type species | |
Oxalaia quilombensis Kellner et al., 2011 | |
Synonyms | |
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It was a member of the Spinosauridae family, a group of crocodile-like theropod dinosaurs. Like other spinosaurids, Oxalaia had a long nose or snout with jaws and teeth shaped to feed on fish. Oxalaia's habitat was tropical, an area of large forests around which were dry deserts. Oxalaia shared this environment with many other animals, most of which are also known from other Cretaceous fossils discovered in Africa.