in 1999. Today, this is understood to be an unnatural (paraphyletic) group, and Qantassaurus was recently recovered as a basal iguanodont by Boyd (2015), and more specifically as a member of the iguanodontian clade Elasmaria by Rozadilla et al. (2016) and Madzia et al. (2017). 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. History The holotype of Qantassaurus was discovered on 27 February 1996, during the third annual field season of the Dinosaur Dreaming project, a dig jointly run by Monash University and the National Museum of Victoria. The dig occurred on the beach of the Bunurong Marine Park at the intertidal site known as Flat Rocks, near Inverloch, in southeastern Victoria, Australia. The rock outcrops at this site are part of the Wonthaggi Formation of the Strzelecki Group, which during the Barremian stage were deposited in floodplains with braided river channels. The holotype specimen, NMV P199075, a fifty-six millimetres long single left dentary of the lower jaw, containing ten teeth (three unerupted), was found by Mrs Nicole Evered, a long time participant of the dig. Two other jaws, specimens NMV P198962, a left dentary, and NMV P199087, a right dentary, found at the same site the same year have also been tentatively associated with, or referred to, the species. It was named Qantassaurus intrepidus by Patricia Vickers-Rich and Tom Rich in 1999, in honor of the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, 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. References Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Australia Ornithopods Qantas Fossil taxa described in 1999 Taxa named by Patricia Vickers-Rich Paleontology in Victoria Taxa named by Tom Rich Ornithischian genera