Huayracursor jaguensis
Huayracursor jaguensis was a small, lightly built plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic in what is now north-western Argentina. It reached roughly two metres from snout to tail tip and is estimated to have weighed only about 15–20 kilograms – about the size of a medium dog, but with a strikingly long neck and a very long, slender tail.
Huayracursor
Huayracursor jaguensis
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Weight
15–20 kg
Length
1.8–2.2 m
Diet
Herbivore
Period
Triassic
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15–20 kg
1.8–2.2 m
Triassic
Bipedal
50–70 cm
Herbivore
One recorded fossil find, in Argentina. First described in 2025 by Hechenleitner et al..
Sites and counts from the Paleobiology Database
The timeline shows the whole age of dinosaurs – and how much time has passed since. The glowing part is when Huayracursor lived.
million years ago
Lived 231–227 million years ago
If the whole age of dinosaurs were a single day, Huayracursor lived at 02:57.
Chapter • Meet the dinosaur
Huayracursor jaguensis was a small, lightly built plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Late Triassic in what is now north-western Argentina. It reached roughly two metres from snout to tail tip and is estimated to have weighed only about 15–20 kilograms – about the size of a medium dog, but with a strikingly long neck and a very long, slender tail. Its body was built to be carried on two legs: the hind limbs were long and gracile, while the arms and hands were much smaller. Its skin was almost certainly scaly or leathery; there is no evidence of feathers in early sauropodomorphs, and none should be expected in this part of the dinosaur family tree. The head was small relative to the body, and the teeth were small with coarsely serrated edges of the kind suited to cropping plant material.
Chapter • Where it lived
Huayracursor lived in the Late Triassic, roughly 230 million years ago, in what is today La Rioja Province in north-western Argentina. The fossil comes from Triassic rocks high in the Andes near the village of Jagüé, in a region that then lay in the interior of the supercontinent Pangaea. The landscape was one of floodplains and broad valleys with seasonal rivers, alternating dry and wet periods, and a flora of ferns, seed ferns and conifers – grasses did not yet exist. Its neighbours in the same ecosystem included other early dinosaurs, close dinosaur relatives, large predatory crocodile-line reptiles and mammal-like synapsids.
Chapter • Wild behavior
There is no direct evidence for how Huayracursor behaved socially; the species is known from far too few individuals for firm conclusions. In some other early sauropodomorphs, such as Mussaurus, palaeontologists have found groups of similarly aged individuals and clustered nests, hinting at herding behaviour. Whether Huayracursor did anything similar is simply unknown.
The name means roughly "wind runner" – huayra is Quechua for wind, and cursor is Latin for runner.
The species name jaguensis refers to the village of Jagüé in La Rioja, Argentina, near where the skeleton was found.
The fossil site lies high in the Andes, in some of the most difficult Triassic terrain palaeontologists have worked in.
Although Huayracursor was a sauropodomorph – the same group that later produced giants such as Brachiosaurus – it weighed less than an adult human.
Its neck was already elongated relative to the body, an early step towards the extreme necks of true sauropods.
It walked on two legs rather than four, like most early sauropodomorphs.
Huayracursor was first described in 2025, making it one of the most recently named Triassic dinosaurs.
The find reinforces the picture that the earliest dinosaurs were small animals, nothing like the colossi the group is famous for.
Chapter • Scientific place
Nature (Hechenleitner, Martinelli, Rocher, Fiorelli, Juarez, Taborda & Desojo, 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Original description erecting Huayracursor jaguensis and placing it by phylogenetic analysis within Dinosauria, Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha (Bagualosauria).
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Documents the holotype locality at Quebrada Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo Formation, Northern Precordillera Basin, La Rioja Province, north-western Argentina, and its Carnian stratigraphic position.
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Describes the Upper Triassic continental palaeoenvironment of the newly recognised Andean basin together with the associated late Carnian tetrapod assemblage (rhynchosaurs, cynodonts, pseudosuchians and other early dinosaurs).
Open sourcePaleobiology (Cambridge University Press)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Peer-reviewed analysis of craniodental function documenting the early adoption of herbivory in the sauropodomorph lineage to which Huayracursor belongs.
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Extinct taxon; conservation status NE
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Peer-reviewed overview of the nearly complete holotype skeleton of Huayracursor jaguensis, including its body size, cervical elongation and significance for early dinosaur evolution.
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Peer-reviewed overview of the nearly complete holotype skeleton of Huayracursor jaguensis, including its body size, cervical elongation and significance for early dinosaur evolution.
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Peer-reviewed overview of the nearly complete holotype skeleton of Huayracursor jaguensis, including its body size, cervical elongation and significance for early dinosaur evolution.
Open sourceNature (Hechenleitner et al., 2025)
Reviewed: 9/6/2026
Peer-reviewed overview of the nearly complete holotype skeleton of Huayracursor jaguensis, including its body size, cervical elongation and significance for early dinosaur evolution.
Open source