Riograndia is an extinct genus of prozostrodontian cynodonts from the Late Triassic of Brazil. The type and only species is Riograndia guaibensis, named after the State of Rio Grande do Sul and Guaíba Basin, where it was discovered. Remains have been found in the Caturrita Formation of the geopark of Paleorrota. It was a small non-mammalian cynodont, with several advanced features also present in mammals. Several specimens of Riograndia guaibensis have been found in the towns of Candelária and Faxinal do Soturno in the Caturrita Formation. The genus defines the Riograndia Assemblage Zone.
Riograndia is an extinct genus of prozostrodontian cynodonts from the Late Triassic of Brazil. The type and only species is Riograndia guaibensis, named after the State of Rio Grande do Sul and Guaíba Basin, where it was discovered. Remains have been found in the Caturrita Formation of the geopark of Paleorrota. It was a small non-mammalian cynodont, with several advanced features also present in mammals. Several specimens of Riograndia guaibensis have been found in the towns of Candelária and Faxinal do Soturno in the Caturrita Formation. The genus defines the Riograndia Assemblage Zone.
== Description == Holotype (MCN-PV 2264) is an anterior part of a skull, from the tip of snout to the fronto-parietal contact, with complete dentition. The unique feature of Riograndia are lobed postcanine teeth with approximately equal 5-9 sharp cuspules located along the almost semicircular edge of the crowns of the upper postcanine teeth and in the posterodorsal edge of the lower postcanine teeth. Most specimens have skulls of approximately 35 mm long. Study of the postcranial skeleton shows that Riograndia had a semi-sprawling forelimbs, similar to those of more basal synapsids. The limbs of more advanced cynodonts are positioned more straight. The body of Riograndia was held above the ground with the help of adductor muscles attached to the forelimbs.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).