Manidens
Manidens was a tiny, plant-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Argentina. It had a beak and special teeth that looked a bit like a human hand. This little dinosaur was only about as long as a big dog!1
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Fun facts
Manidens lived during the Middle Jurassic, about 171 to 167 million years ago, in a time when South America had many lakes and forests.1
Its name comes from the Latin words for 'hand' and 'tooth' because its last tooth looked like a tiny hand with fingers.1
Manidens is a heterodontosaurid, a group of small ornithischian dinosaurs that often had different types of teeth for different jobs.1
The only known skeleton of Manidens includes parts of the skull, jaws, backbone, shoulder, and hips, but not the tail or legs.1
Scientists think Manidens shows an intermediate step in the evolution of plant-eating: it had high tooth crowns but not the heavy wear facets that later relatives had.1
Manidens was one of the few ornithischian dinosaurs known from the Jurassic of South America, making it a rare find.1
Most asked questions about Manidens
?How big was Manidens?
Manidens was about 60 cm (2.0 ft) long and weighed around 500 g (1.1 lb), smaller than later heterodontosaurids.2
?What did Manidens eat?
Manidens was a plant-eater. It had high-crowned teeth for chewing plants, but it lacked the heavy wear facets seen in more advanced relatives.21
?When did Manidens live?
Manidens lived during the Early Jurassic, about 179 to 178 million years ago, in what is now Argentina.2
?Did Manidens have feathers?
Scientists think it might have. A close relative called Tianyulong had filamentous structures, so Manidens may have had them too.2
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For dino experts
- Scientific name
- Manidens
- Named by
- Pol et al. 20113
- Group
- Beaked plant-eaters
- Family / clade
- Heterodontosauridae3
- Classification
- Ornithischia > Heterodontosauridae3
- Age of the rocks
- 184 to 171 million years (Toarcian / Aalenian)3
- Rock formations
- Cañadón Asfalto3
- Countries
- Argentina3
- Fossil records
- 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
- Discovery
- Manidens was named in 2011 by Diego Pol, Oliver Rauhut, and Marcos Becerra. The fossils were found at the Queso Rallado site near Cerro Cóndor, Argentina, in the Cañadón Asfalto Formation.13
- Still debated
- Scientists are still debating exactly how Manidens chewed its food, since its teeth were high and close together but lacked the heavy wear seen in more advanced plant-eaters.1
Where the facts come from
- A Middle Jurassic heterodontosaurid dinosaur from Patagonia and the evolution of heterodontosaurids (staff.mef.org.ar)
- Manidens (en.wikipedia.org)
- Manidens 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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