Minmi

Minmi is a genus of small herbivorous ankylosaurian dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period of Australia, about 119 to 113 million years ago.

In 1964, Dr Alan Bartholomai, a collaborator of the Queensland Museum, discovered a chalkstone nodule containing an ankylosaurian skeleton in Queensland near Minmi Crossing, along the Injun Road, one kilometre south of Mack Gulley, north of Roma.

In 1980, Ralph E. Molnar named and described the type species, in this case the only species known in the genus, Minmi paravertebra. The generic name, at the time the shortest of a Mesozoic dinosaur, refers to Minmi Crossing. The meaning of "minmi" itself is uncertain; it refers to a large lily in the local aboriginal language but might also be derived from min min, a kind of will-o'-the-wisp. The specific name refers to strange bone elements found along the vertebrae, for which Molnar coined the designation paravertebrae.

The holotype, QM F10329, was discovered in a layer of the Bungil Formation, the Minmi Member, a lagoon deposit which was first dated to the Barremian-Valanginian, but later was recalibrated to the Aptian. It consists of a partial skeleton, lacking the skull. It preserves a series of eleven back vertebrae, ribs, a right hindlimb, and plates of the belly armour. It was the first specimen of a member of the Thyreophora discovered in the Southern Hemisphere.

In 1989, a much more complete skeleton was discovered, specimen QM F1801 that includes the skull and shows an articulated body armour. It was referred to a Minmi sp. Since 1989, most information provided on Minmi in books and illustrations is based on this second exemplar, but in 2015, it was named as a separate genus, Kunbarrasaurus.

Between 1989 and 1996 several other specimens were discovered and ultimately referred to a Minmi sp. These include QM F33286: a rump with pelvis and osteoderms; AM F35259: ribs with osteoderms; QM F33565: a partial thighbone; and QM F33566: a partial shinbone, perhaps of the same individual as QM F33565. AM F35259 is part of the collection of the Australian Museum. Later specimen QM F119849 was reported, consisting of ribs and osteoderms.