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Saturnalia

Say it: sat-er-NAH-lee-uh

Name means: “named after the Roman festival of Saturnalia, because the fossils were found during Carnival”1

Ate: A bit of everythingLong-necksLate Triassic

Saturnalia was one of the very first dinosaurs to ever walk the Earth. It was a small, speedy plant-eater that lived in what is now Brazil about 233 million years ago. Scientists have found several skeletons, making it one of the best-known early dinosaurs.1

Lived

237 to 227 million years ago2

Late Triassic

Fossils found in

Rio Grande do Sul, southern Brazil1

Food

A bit of everything1

Length

1.5 m1

Weight

4 kg to 11 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 3 house cats

as long as 3 house cats nose to tailas long as 8 bananas end to endas heavy as 92 bananas

How big was Saturnalia compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Saturnalia was only about 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) long, about the size of a large dog.1

Its skull was only about 10 centimetres (3.9 inches) long, giving it a tiny head compared to its body.1

Saturnalia had a long neck made of nine or ten vertebrae, which was about half the length of its trunk.1

It lived at the same time as the meat-eating dinosaur Staurikosaurus, which may have hunted it.1

Saturnalia is one of the oldest dinosaurs ever found, dating back to about 233 million years ago.1

The fossils were collected during the Brazilian Carnival, which is why scientists named it after the Roman festival Saturnalia.1

AI-made picture of Saturnalia — An AI-made picture of how Saturnalia 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.

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Myth buster

Myth: Saturnalia was a plant-eater like later sauropodomorphs.

Truth: Scientists now think Saturnalia was probably an omnivore or carnivore, eating insects and small animals, based on its teeth and skull shape.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Saturnalia
Named by: Langer et al. 19992
Group: Long-necks
Family / clade: Saturnaliidae2
Classification: Sauropodomorpha2
Age of the rocks: 237 to 227 million years (Carnian)2
Rock formations: Santa Maria, Pebbly Arkose2
Countries: Brazil, Zimbabwe2
Fossil records: 3 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Saturnalia was named in 1999 by Max Cardoso Langer and his team, based on three skeletons found in the Santa Maria Formation of Brazil during the 1998 Carnival.1
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Saturnalia was a true sauropodomorph or more closely related to theropods, because it has a mix of features from both groups.1

Where the facts come from

Saturnalia tupiniquim (en.wikipedia.org)
Saturnalia 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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