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Chakisaurus

Say it: CHAH-kee-SORE-us

Name means: “Chaki means guanaco in the Tehuelche language and saurus means lizard in Greek”1

Ate: PlantsBeaked plant-eatersEarly Cretaceous

Chakisaurus was a fast-running, plant-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina about 90 million years ago. It had a strange tail that curved downward, unlike most other dinosaurs. It could run very quickly to escape predators.1

Lived

110 to 106 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Pueblo Blanco Natural Reserve, Río Negro province, Argentina4 1

Food

Plants4 1

Length

2.5 to 3 m1

Height

0.7 m1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How tall was it?

as long as 3 dogs nose to tailas long as 17 bananas end to end

How big was Chakisaurus compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Chakisaurus had a tail that curved downward, which is very unusual for a dinosaur. Most dinosaurs held their tails straight out.1

It was a fast runner, and scientists think its curved tail helped it balance while running.1

Chakisaurus was about the size of a large dog, reaching 2.5 to 3 meters (8 to 10 feet) long.1

It lived during the Late Cretaceous period, about 90 million years ago.1

Chakisaurus is the first named ornithischian dinosaur from the Huincul Formation in Argentina.2

Its name comes from the Tehuelche word 'chaki' meaning guanaco, a fast South American animal, and 'saurus' meaning lizard.1

AI-made picture of Chakisaurus — An AI-made picture of how Chakisaurus 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 Chakisaurus

?How big was Chakisaurus?

About 2.5 to 3 metres long and 70 centimetres tall at the hip, roughly the size of a large dog.1

?What did Chakisaurus eat?

It was a plant-eater, or herbivore, that ate leaves and other plants.1

?Why did Chakisaurus have a curved tail?

Scientists think the downward-curved tail helped it balance while running fast, but they are still studying it.3 1

?When did Chakisaurus live?

It lived about 90 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period.1

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Chakisaurus
Named by: Nogueira et al. 20244
Group: Beaked plant-eaters
Family / clade: Elasmaria4
Classification: Ornithischia > Ornithopoda > Iguanodontia4
Age of the rocks: 110 to 106 million years (Albian)4
Rock formations: Huincul4
Countries: Argentina4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Chakisaurus was named by Rodrigo Alvarez Nogueira and colleagues in 2024. The fossils were found at the Pueblo Blanco Natural Reserve in Río Negro, Argentina.4 1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Chakisaurus used its downward-curved tail, and whether it helped with running or something else.1

Where the facts come from

Argentine scientists find speedy 90-million-year-old herbivore dinosaur | Reuters (reuters.com)
A new ornithopod from the Upper Cretaceous (Huincul Formation) of northwestern Patagonia, Argentina: Implications on elasmarian postcranial anatomy (sciencedirect.com)
Chakisaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Chakisaurus 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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