Dino of the Week: Blikanasaurus

Type Species: Blikanasaurus cromptoni

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Sauropodomorpha - Prosauropoda

Time Period: Late Triassic

Location: South America

Diet: Herbivore

This 16½ foot “Lizard from Blikana” hails from the Upper Triassic rocks of South Africa. This entire species is known only from a stout limb bone and feet fragments. These scant remains tells us a lot while raising more questions. The bones tells us, on the one hand, that Blikanasaurus had proportionally small feet, indicating that it probably had a fully quadrupedal lifestyle. On the other hand, the scant remains make Blikanasaurus’ relationship to other dinosaurs murky. Some scientists classify it as a prosauropod; still others think it’s the earliest known ancestor of the sauropods. However, Blikanasaurus had a reduced fifth toe while the later sauropods had well-developed fifth toes to assist with weight bearing. Perhaps, then, Blikanasaurus represents a failed off-shoot from the prosauropods that simply wasn’t cut from the right cloth to make it through the Jurassic.