Burianosaurus

Burianosaurus Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
Holotype femur
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	†Ornithischia
Clade:	†Ornithopoda
Genus:	†Burianosaurus Madzia et al., 2017
Type species
†Burianosaurus augustai Madzia et al., 2017

Burianosaurus is an extinct genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived in what is now the Czech Republic (it was found in 2003 near the city of Kutná Hora), being the first validly named dinosaur from that country. The type species, B. augustai, was named in 2017; the genus name honours the Czech palaeoartist Zdeněk Burian, and the species name honours the Czech palaeontologist Josef Augusta. The holotype specimen is a femur discovered in sediments belonging to the Peruc-Korycany Formation in 2003, which was described as possibly belonging to an iguanodont in 2005.

Classification

Femur on exhibit in Prague

When the fossil was first described in 2005, it was said to be most morphologically similar to Early Cretaceous members of Iguanodontidae, as opposed to later taxa such as Rhabdodon. Madzia et al. (2017), the study which named the genus, ran two phylogenetic analyses to test the relationships of the taxon. The first, based on the matrix of MacDonald et al. (2012), found it within the clade Rhabdodontomorpha, with support very strong for it being outside of Ankylopollexia. The analysis based on the Boyd et al. (2015) matrix, which they considered more strongly supported, due to better taxon sampling of basal ornithopods and neornithischians, found it to be one of the most basal ornithopods, sister to the clade Iguanodontia. Their cladogram is reproduced below:

Clypeodonta	Hypsilophodon Cerapoda Marginocephalia Ornithopoda Gideonmantellia Elasmaria Burianosaurus Iguanodontia Rhabdodontomorpha Muttaburrasaurus Rhabdodontidae Tenontosaurus Dryomorpha Dryosauridae Ankylopollexia Camptosaurus Iguanodon Ouranosaurus

See also

• 2017 in archosaur paleontology