Bicentenaria

Say it: by-SEN-ten-AR-ee-uh

Name means: “two hundred year anniversary”1

Ate: MeatOther meat-eatersEarly Cretaceous

Bicentenaria was a small, fast meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina. It was about as long as a car and weighed as much as a big dog. It hunted smaller animals and maybe even lived in groups.4 2

Lived

113 to 110 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Río Negro Province, northern Patagonia, Argentina2

Food

Meat4

Length

2.5 to 3 m1 2

estimated

Weight

40 kg2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

as long as 1.5 bicycles in a rowas long as 17 bananas end to endas heavy as 10 house catsas heavy as 8 watermelons

How big was Bicentenaria compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Bicentenaria was named to celebrate 200 years of Argentina's first independent government.1

Its fossils were found in a small area with bones from at least three different individuals.2

Scientists think Bicentenaria may have lived in groups because many skeletons were buried together.2

It lived alongside huge predators like Giganotosaurus, but was much smaller and more lightly built.2

Bicentenaria had special teeth with serrations only at the base of the crown.2

It is one of the earliest known coelurosaurs from the southern continents.2

AI-made picture of Bicentenaria — An AI-made picture of how Bicentenaria might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

you asked

Most asked questions about Bicentenaria

?How big was Bicentenaria?

Bicentenaria was about 2.5 to 3 metres (8 to 10 feet) long and weighed around 40 kilograms (88 pounds). That is about as long as a small motorcycle and as heavy as a big dog.1 3

?Did Bicentenaria live in groups?

Yes, scientists think Bicentenaria may have lived in groups because the fossils of at least three different individuals were found buried together in a small area.1 3

?What did Bicentenaria eat?

Bicentenaria was a meat-eating dinosaur that hunted smaller animals. Its sharp teeth and claws helped it catch prey.1

?When did Bicentenaria live?

Bicentenaria lived during the Early Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Bicentenaria
Named by: Novas et al. 20124
Group: Other meat-eaters
Family / clade: Coelurosauria4
Classification: Theropoda4
Age of the rocks: 113 to 110 million years (Albian)4
Rock formations: Candeleros4
Countries: Argentina4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Bicentenaria was discovered by Raul Spedale in 1998 on the shore of a reservoir in Argentina. It was named and described by Fernando Novas and colleagues in 2012.2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly where Bicentenaria fits in the dinosaur family tree, but they think it is a very early coelurosaur.2

Where the facts come from

Bicentenaria (en.m.wikipedia.org)
Untitled Document (scielo.org.ar)
New Patagonian Cretaceous theropod sheds light about the early radiation of Coelurosauria (dinodata.de)
Bicentenaria in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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