Product Code Database
Ypupiara (meaning "the one who lives in the water") is an extinct genus of unenlagiinae theropod from the Late Cretaceous Serra da Galga Formation of Brazil. It was the first member of the Dromaeosauridae to be discovered in South America and the first member of the Unenlagiinae to be discovered, but not the first to be identified as such. The type and only species, Y. lopai, is known solely from a specimen that was destroyed in a fire in 2018.
Photographs of the holotype were taken shortly before it was destroyed when the museum it was housed in was heavily damaged in a fire on 2 September 2018. Holgado et al. (2018) recognised DGM 921-R as belonging to a new genus of Unenlagiinae theropods,Holgado, Brum, Pegas, Bandeira, Souza, Kellner and Campos, (2018). A new Unenlagiinae (Theropoda: Dromaeosauridae) from the Maastrichtian of Brazil. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2018. 148. and the paper naming and describing the holotype was due to be submitted around the same time as the fire that destroyed the fossil, but was delayed because of the fire and the species was not named and described until 2021. The generic name, Ypupiara, is derived from a Tupi language word meaning "the one who lives in the water," in reference to a local mythological creature and its inferred diet of fish. The specific name, lopai, honors the holotype's discoverer.
During the 1950s, a single metatarsus belonging to a dromaeosaurid was discovered by Alberto Lopa. This specimen, known as "Lopasaurus" (meaning "Alberto Lopa's lizard"), was lost sometime after the death of Llewellyn Ivor Price in 1980. It was acknowledged by Brum et al. (2021), where they tentatively referred "Lopasaurus" to the Unenlagiinae, but they could not determine whether "Lopasaurus" represents the same taxon as Ypupiara, due to the lack of overlapping material.
|
|
