Athabascasaurus is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of ophthalmosaurid ichthyosaur

Ichthyosaur

Ichthyosaurs were giant marine reptiles that resembled fish and dolphins...

 known from the Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

 of Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Description

Athabascasaurus is known from the holotype

Holotype

A holotype is a single physical example of an organism, known to have been used when the species was formally described. It is either the single such physical example or one of several such, but explicitly designated as the holotype...

 TMP

Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology

The Royal Tyrrell Museum is a popular Canadian tourist attraction and a leading centre of palaeontological research noted for its collection of more than 130,000 fossils....

 2000.29.01, articulate

Articulate

Articulate may refer to:*Articulate *Articulate sign*Articulate sound*Joint, also known as articulation*Word modified by an article...

d nearly complete postcrania

Postcrania

Postcrania[p] in zoology and vertebrate paleontology refers to all or part of the skeleton apart from the skull. Frequently, fossil remains, e.g...

l skeleton

Skeleton

The skeleton is the body part that forms the supporting structure of an organism. There are two different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, and the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body.In a figurative sense, skeleton can...

 and nearly complete skull

Skull

The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...

 preserved in dorsal view, missing the premaxilla

Premaxilla

The incisive bone is the portion of the maxilla adjacent to the incisors. It is a pair of small cranial bones at the very tip of the jaws of many animals, usually bearing teeth, but not always. They are connected to the maxilla and the nasals....

. It was collected in 2000 in the western side of the Syncrude Base Mine near Ft. McMurray, from the Wabiskaw Member of the Clearwater Formation

Clearwater Formation

The Clearwater Formation is a stratigraphical unit of Albian age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.It takes the name from Clearweater River. The formation is exposed on the banks of the Athabasca River between Brule Falls and Boiler Falls, as well as along the Christina River, a tributary...

, dating to the earliest Albian

Albian

The Albian is both an age of the geologic timescale and a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is the youngest or uppermost subdivision of the Early/Lower Cretaceous epoch/series. Its approximate time range is 112.0 ± 1.0 Ma to 99.6 ± 0.9 Ma...

 stage of the Early Cretaceous

Early Cretaceous

The Early Cretaceous or the Lower Cretaceous , is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous...

, about 112 million years ago.

Etymology

Athabascasaurus was first named by Patrick S. Druckenmiller and Erin E. Maxwell in 2010

2010 in paleontology

-Anomalocaridids:-Newly named crustaceans:-Newly named insects:* A new family, Cascopleciidae, is published by Poinar Jr.* A new family of ceraphronoid Hymenopters, Radiophronidae, is published by Ortega-Blanco, Rasnitsyn, and Delclòs....

 and the type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 is Athabascasaurus bitumineus. The generic name is derived from the name of the Athabasca River

Athabasca River

The Athabasca River originates from the Columbia Glacier of the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada...

, which runs through Athabasca Oil Sands Area, where the holotype was collected, and sauros, Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 for "lizard". The specific name refers to the fact that it was recovered in an oil sands mine.