Name:
Anabisetia (after the archaeologist Ana Biset); pronounced AH-an-biss-ET-ee-ah
Habitat:
Woodlands of South America
Historical Period:
Late Cretaceous (95 million years ago)
Size and Weight:
About 6-7 feet long and 40-50 pounds
Diet:
Plants
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Small size; bipedal posture
About Anabisetia:
For reasons that remain mysterious, very few ornithopods--the small, bipedal, plant-eating dinosaurs--have been discovered in South America. Anabisetia (named after the archaeologist Ana Biset) is the best-attested of this select group, with a complete skeleton, lacking only the head, reconstructed from four separate fossil specimens. Anabisetia was closely related to its fellow South American ornithopod, Gasparinisaura, and probably to the more obscure Notohypsilophodon as well. Judging by the profusion of large, carnivorous theropods that prowled late Cretaceous South America, Anabisetia must have been a very fast (and very nervous) dinosaur!
