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Eoraptor in blue and green with a bone-white skull, running on two legs

N° 001 · Small Beginnings

Eoraptor

The Dawn Dinosaur

Say it: EE-oh-RAP-tor

Species
Eoraptor lunensis, Sereno and others 1993
Name means
Dawn plunderer
Lived
Late Triassic, about 230 million years ago
Found
Argentina
Length
About 1 m
Weight
About 3.5 to 10 kg
Diet
Debated: small animals, plants or both

Three things to know

Close to the first dinosaur

One of the oldest dinosaurs known. The scientists who named it in 1993 wrote that its metre-long skeleton is close to the size and build expected of the ancestor of all dinosaurs.

Hunter, or cousin of giants?

First described as an early meat-eater, it was moved by a 2011 study to the base of the line that led to the long-necked giants. Its jaws hold two kinds of teeth.

A desert that was once green

Discovered in 1991 in Argentina’s Valley of the Moon, today a desert. The rocks show the area was wetter then, with lakes and lush plants.

Every fact on this page is traced to a published source, listed at the back of the book.

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Eoraptor in the book

The real spread of N° 001 from the atlas: the text page with the facts, notes and six signs on the left, the plate on the right.

Eoraptor in the book: the left-hand text pageEoraptor in the book: the right-hand plate page

When and where Eoraptor lived

Eoraptor lived about 230 million years ago, in the Late Triassic, when the dinosaurs were still a small and rare group among many other reptiles. Its bones come from the Ischigualasto Formation in San Juan Province, north-western Argentina, a landscape now known as the Valley of the Moon and protected as a World Heritage Site. Today the valley is dry and bare, but the rocks record rivers, seasonal floods and plants. The most common large animals there were not dinosaurs at all but rhynchosaurs, stocky beaked plant-eaters, alongside early relatives of mammals and crocodiles.

How Eoraptor was discovered and named

The first skeleton was found in 1991 by Ricardo Martínez, during a field season in Ischigualasto with an Argentine and American team. Paul Sereno and his colleagues named it in 1993. The name joins the Greek word for dawn with the Latin raptor, plunderer, because it seemed to stand at the very start of the dinosaur story. The species name, lunensis, points back to the Valley of the Moon.

How Eoraptor lived

Eoraptor was small and lightly built, about a metre long, and ran on its two back legs while its shorter arms ended in grasping hands. Its mixed teeth, leaf-shaped near the front and curved further back, suggest it was not a fussy eater: it may have taken insects, small reptiles and plants as it found them. Because it is so simple and so early, scientists still argue over exactly where it belongs on the family tree, and every new early dinosaur from Argentina or Brazil adds to that debate.

Eoraptor in Glowing Dinosaurs

Eoraptor is entry N° 001 of the atlas, in the chapter Small Beginnings. Its spread follows the same layout as every other dinosaur in the book: on the left, its name and how to say it, the epithet The Dawn Dinosaur, the three facts above, field notes and the six signs that show when it lived, how big it was, how dangerous it would have been, where it was found, what it ate and how it fought. On the right is the full glowing plate: eoraptor in blue and green with a bone-white skull, running on two legs. Two more plates of Eoraptor appear elsewhere in the book, and each can also be ordered as a signed work for the wall, printed on wood or acrylic under glass. In the same chapter you will also find Herrerasaurus.

Why Eoraptor glows

No dinosaur is known to have glowed, and the book says so plainly. The light is the artist’s way of seeing inside the animal: in the plate of Eoraptor, bones, muscles and outline shine through a dark ground, so the shape of the skull, the length of the neck and tail and the build of the legs can be read at once, the way a fossil skeleton is read in a museum hall. The colours are chosen to separate bone from muscle and to make each animal recognisable across the whole atlas, while every fact printed beside the picture is checked against published research.

Questions about Eoraptor

How big was Eoraptor?

Eoraptor measured about 1 m from nose to tail and weighed about 3.5 to 10 kg. The size panel on its spread in the book draws it beside a person, so its scale can be seen at a glance.

When did Eoraptor live?

It lived in the Late Triassic, about 230 million years ago. On the timeline in the book, its place is marked between the first dinosaurs, about 230 million years ago, and the end of the age of dinosaurs, 66 million years ago.

Where have Eoraptor fossils been found?

Its fossils have been found in Argentina. The map on its spread in the book marks the places where its bones were dug up.

What did Eoraptor eat?

Its diet: debated: small animals, plants or both. The diet sign in the book shows this with a simple symbol, so young readers can sort the plant-eaters from the meat-eaters.

What does the name Eoraptor mean?

The name means “dawn plunderer”. The full scientific name is Eoraptor lunensis, Sereno and others 1993: the genus, the species and the scientist who named it, with the year. It is pronounced EE-oh-RAP-tor.

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