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Qantassaurus ( ) is a genus of basal two-legged, plant-eating ornithischian dinosaur that lived in Australia about 125-112 million years ago, when the continent was still partly south of the Antarctic Circle. It was described by Patricia Vickers-Rich and her husband Tom Rich in 1999 after a find near Inverloch, and named after Qantas, the Australian airline."The Hypsilophodontidae from southeastern Australia", by Tom H. Rich, and Patricia Vickers-Rich. October, 1999. In Proceedings of the Second Gondwana Dinosaur Symposium, edited by Y. Tomada, Tom H. Rich. and Patricia Vickers-Rich. National Science Museum Monographs, number 15, pages 167 to 180. (the technical paper naming the species)
Qantassaurus is only known from jaw fragments. These are foreshortened compared to related species so its face was probably short and stocky. It had ten teeth in each mandible. It probably had a beak, and possessed leaf-shaped teeth back in its cheek, which were shed as they wore down, and replaced by new teeth growing up from the jaw. The teeth had eight distinctive vertical ridges on the outer side with a single larger primary ridge in the centre. Like its close relative Leaellynasaura, its diet consisted of plants like and Equisetum.
Qantassaurus lived 127.2-125 million years ago in Australia, during the late Barremian faunal stage of the early Cretaceous geologic period. At the time, Australia was part of the supercontinent of Gondwana, and partly within the Antarctic Circle, although the significance of polar conditions during the warm Cretaceous were greatly different from conditions in this region today. The average temperature of the region is contentious, with estimates ranging from -6 to well over 5 °C (21 to 37 °F). Conditions were likely to be at their coldest during the polar nights, which lasted up to three months.
One interpretation of the fossil material is that small ornithopods had adaptations to survive cooler conditions. Bone growth of presumed related taxa shows they were active all year round, so they did not hibernate through the winter. The structure of these bones also suggests warm-bloodedness, which would help maintain its thermoregulation.
In this regard, it is one of four ornithischian species once considered hypsilophodontids from southeast Australia, along with Leaellynasaura amicagraphica, Atlascopcosaurus loadsi, and Fulgurotherium australe. The four taxa are mostly known from isolated bones and teeth; however the thigh bones of F. australe are very diverse and may belong to three genera.
It was named Qantassaurus intrepidus by Patricia Vickers-Rich and Tom Rich in 1999, in honor of the Qantas, which shipped fossils around the country as part of the Great Russian Dinosaurs Exhibit between 1993 and 1996, and sponsored expeditions to South America and Eastern Europe. Qantas is an acronym, which is why a u does not follow the q in Qantassaurus. The specific name means "intrepid" in Latin, referring to the climatic challenges the small dinosaur had to face. Qantassaurus intrepidus, from Dann's Dinosaurs.
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