The dinosaur that lived 185 million years ago during the Jurassic period has been named Seitaad ruessi, which is derived from a Navajo word. It was a plant-eating prosauropod and could have been buried alive by a sand dune. The skeleton was first discovered in 2004 and subsequently excavated in 2005. Seitaad would have been about 1 metre tall at the hips and up to 4.5 metres long. It could have weighed up to 90kg. Like other basal sauropodomorphs Seitaad could walk on either two or four legs.

 

Seitaad was discovered in the sandstone of southern Utah, USA, and although prosauropods are known from around the world, not many have so far been found in the USA. Hence this is an important find. Prosauropods were not direct ancestors of sauropods as might be thought. They both fall into the larger sauropodomorpha group and probably evolved in parallel.