Kwanasaurus is an extinct genus of silesaurid dinosauromorph reptiles from the Late Triassic of Colorado. It is known from a single species, Kwanasaurus williamparkeri. Kwanasaurus had a deeper, stronger skull and greater specialization for herbivory compared to other silesaurids. It also possessed many unique characteristics of the snout, ilium, and lower part of the femur. It was described along with new specimens of Dromomeron from the Eagle Basin, the northernmost extent of the Chinle Formation.
Kwanasaurus is an extinct genus of silesaurid dinosauromorph reptiles from the Late Triassic of Colorado. It is known from a single species, Kwanasaurus williamparkeri. Kwanasaurus had a deeper, stronger skull and greater specialization for herbivory compared to other silesaurids. It also possessed many unique characteristics of the snout, ilium, and lower part of the femur. It was described along with new specimens of Dromomeron from the Eagle Basin, the northernmost extent of the Chinle Formation.
== Discovery == Kwanasaurus hails from Triassic deposits in the Eagle Basin surrounding the town of Eagle, Colorado. This area contains the most northern exposures of the Chinle Formation, which is famous for its Late Triassic fossils of dinosaurs and other reptiles. Tentative terrestrial reptile biostratigraphy estimates that the Eagle Basin fossils, which were preserved in red siltstone, belong to the Revueltian biozone of the mid to late Norian stage of the Triassic, 215-207 million years ago. The holotype of Kwanasaurus is a partial silesaurid maxilla, DMNH EPV.65879. All other silesaurid maxillae recovered from the area seem to represent the same taxon, indicating that Kwanasaurus was likely the only silesaurid from the Eagle Basin. With this in mind, all other Eagle Basin fossils resembling those of silesaurids have been referred to the taxon. These include multiple dentaries, teeth, ilia, femora, and a humerus. Dinosauromorph-like tibia and scapulae from the area may also belong to Kwanasaurus, though they have not been referred to the genus due to lacking any clear silesaurid features. Kwanasaurus was named in a 2019 paper by Jeffrey W. Martz and Bryan J. Small, along with the description of new Dromomeron material. The genus name incorporates kwana, the Ute name for eagle. The specific name commemorates paleontologist Bill Parker.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).