Ahvaytum

Ahvaytum's name comes from the Shoshone language, meaning 'long ago'. The species name means 'water's young man' and is also the Shoshone word for dinosaur.1

Scientists found only a few leg bones of Ahvaytum: an ankle bone and a piece of a thigh bone. These small fossils tell us it was a fast-growing, active dinosaur.1

Ahvaytum lived during the Carnian age, about 230 million years ago, which is the same time as the very first dinosaurs in the southern hemisphere.23

The fossils of Ahvaytum were discovered in 2013 in the Popo Agie Formation of Wyoming, a river environment from the Triassic period.1

Ahvaytum was a sauropodomorph, meaning it belonged to the group of long-necked dinosaurs that later included giants like Brachiosaurus. But Ahvaytum was much smaller.1