This was an extensive floodplain environment, filled with seed ferns and conifers, giving Saturnalia good amounts of cover to protect it from other creatures. The long-ish neck of Saturnalia would have allowed it to reach deeper into the plantlife in order to grab food out of reach.Įcosystem: The Santa Maria Formation is a hotspot of early dinosaur diversity, showcasing especially the initial explosion of Sauropodomorphs after dinosaurs first appeared. It would have probably taken care of its young, and may have formed family groups to do so. Regardless, it would have spent a large portion of its day foraging on food, looking around for leaves to strip from branches and small animals to catch in its mouth. It was probably at least somewhat social, given multiple skeletons have been found of it, though of course we cannot be certain of such. Though it is also possible that it was a carnivore.īehavior: Saturnalia, regardless of its affinity, would have been a very skittish animal - avoiding predators in its environment at all costs, and running about on its tip-toes in order to avoid danger. Overall - a very average looking early dinosaur, and certainly very similar to the early Sauropodomorphs and the early Theropods of the time.ĭiet: Saturnalia probably was an omnivore, feeding on both meat and plant food, at low levels of vegetation and mainly focusing on very small animals. It was very slight, and had a skull like that of prosauropods, though its legs were more like those of theropods. It had short arms, somewhat short legs, and a short tail as well. It had a somewhat long neck - but no longer than other early dinosaurs, certainly not proper sauropodomorph length - and a small head.
In fact, according to some, it’s an early theropod!! More work is clearly needed, but regardless, Saturnalia was about 1.5 meters long and no more than a meter tall. It was so much like other dinosaurs that it is often classified outside of Sauropodomorpha proper - and that continues to be a source of debate for these dinosaurs. As an early Prosauropod, then, Saturnalia didn’t look very much different from other early dinosaurs - it was small, fluffy, squat, and bipedal. Physical Description: Saturnalia was probably a very early Prosauropod - aka, those dinosaurs that were more closely related to the large and famous Sauropods than any other kind of dinosaur (the official name for these dinosaurs being Sauropodomorphs). Saturnalia is known from the Alemoa Member of the Santa Maria Formation - it is also possibly known from Zimbabwe, but this assignment is dubious Time and Place: 233.23 million years ago, in the Carnian of the Late Triassic Etymology: Named for the Roman festival of SaturnĬlassification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Sauropodomorpha, Saturnaliidae
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