kayentakatae is an extinct species of neotheropod dinosaur that lived approximately 200–196 million years ago during the early part of the Jurassic Period in what is now the southwestern United States.

[6] Specimen UCMP V128659 was discovered in 1982 and referred to Megapnosaurus kayentakatae by Rowe (1989),[7] as a subadult gracile individual and later, Tykoski (2005)[8] agreed.

Specimen UCMP V128659 was discovered in 1982 and referred to Syntarsus kayentakatae by Rowe in 1989[11] as a subadult gracile individual and Tykoski (2005)[13] later agreed.

[14] Mortimer (2010) pointed out that there was no published evidence to support Kayentavenator being the same as Syntarsus kayentakatae except for in Ezcurra (2012) based on an unpublished analysis.

[1] Marsh and Rowe (2020) retain the generic name Syntarsus for both QG 1 and MNA V2623, and the respective specimens assigned to these taxa, as opposed to Coelophysis or Megapnosaurus, due to systematic relationships within Coelophysoidea in flux.

[18] Ezcurra et al. (2021) found that "Syntarsus" kayentakatae was not closely related to Coelophysis bauri or to Megapnosaurus rhodesiensis.

The Kayenta Formation has produced the remains of three coelophysoid taxa of different body size, representing the most diverse ceratosaur fauna yet known.

[23] Vertebrates present in the Kayenta Formation at the time of S. kayentakatae included hybodont sharks, indeterminate bony fish, lungfish, salamanders, the frog Prosalirus, the caecilian Eocaecilia, the turtle Kayentachelys, a sphenodontian reptile, various lizards, and the pterosaur Rhamphinion.