Eocursor

Eocursor was a small, agile plant-eating dinosaur that lived in southern Africa during the earliest Jurassic period. Unearthed from the Lower Elliot Formation of the Free State, South Africa, it is known from a well-preserved partial skeleton that includes skull fragments, vertebrae, and limb bones. Reaching just about one metre in length, Eocursor was an exceptionally gracile biped with elongated lower leg bones, indicating it was an adept and swift runner capable of escaping larger carnivorous archosaurs. Its hands bore disproportionately large grasping fingers, while its triangular, ridged cheek teeth were specialised for shredding tough vegetation. As one of the most basal and complete ornithischians discovered, Eocursor provides crucial insights into the evolutionary radiation of herbivorous dinosaurs following the mass extinction at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.

It is one of the most complete basal ornithischians known from the dawn of the Jurassic period.

Where and when

Eocursor lived in the Early Jurassic, from 201.3 to 190.8 million years ago (Hettangian-Sinemurian age). Its remains come from South Africa, in the Lower Elliot Formation.

The numbers

Length 1.1 m (estimates run from 1 to 1.2 m). Mass about 2.8 kg. Hip height about 0.3 m. That is 0.6 human-lengths, or 0.1 of a double-decker bus. These are estimates from partial skeleton; fields marked estimated by the site are length, mass, first ma, last ma, hip height.

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