NAME

Meaning - Masiakasaurus means “vicious lizard”
Pronounced - mah-SHEE-ah-kah-SAWR-us
Named By - Scott Sampson, Carrano and Forster
When Named - 2001
DIET

Carnivore (meat-eater) - Masiakasaurus may have eaten small fish, lizards, snakes, and mammals
SIZE

Length - 5.2-6.5 ft (1.6-2.0 m) long
Height - ?
Weight - 35 kg
WHEN IT LIVED

Late Cretaceous period, about 70-65 million years ago
WHERE IT LIVED

Fossils have been found in the Maevarano Formation, Madagascar (an island off the coast of southeastern Africa).
FOSSILS

About 40 percent of a skeleton and parts of the jaw have been found.
CLASSIFICATION
  • Kingdom Animalia (animals)
  • Phylum Chordata (having a hollow nerve chord ending in a brain)
  • Class Archosauria (diapsids with socket-set teeth, etc.)
  • Order Saurischia - lizard-hipped dinosaurs
  • Suborder Theropoda - bipedal carnivores
  • Family Neoceratosauria
  • Genus Masiakasaurus
  • Species M. knopfleri (type species named by Sampson, Carrano and Forster, 2001)
INTERESTING FACTS

Masiakasaurus was a small, bipedal, meat-eating dinosaur that had forward-pointing teeth, a long neck, and a long tail. It was about the size of a really big dog. Masiakasaurus’s species name, knopfleri, was named for Mark Knopfler, a guitarist and singer from the rock band Dire Straits. The paleontologists who discovered this dinosaur were listening to Knopfler’s music when they found and dug up Masiakasaurus.