Tawa (named after the Hopi word for the Puebloan sun god) is a genus of possible basal theropod dinosaurs from the Late Triassic period.

Its discovery alongside the relatives of Coelophysis and Herrerasaurus supports the hypothesis that the earliest dinosaurs arose in Gondwana during the early Late Triassic period in what is now South America, and radiated from there around the globe.

A neck vertebral adaptation in Tawa supports the hypothesis that cervical air sacs antedate the origin of the Neotheropoda and may be ancestral for saurischians, and also links the dinosaurs with the evolution of birds.

The holotype, a juvenile individual, cataloged GR 241, consists of a mostly complete, but disarticulated skull, forelimbs, a partial vertebral column, hindlimbs, ribs, and gastralia.

The discovery of Tawa alongside the relatives of Coelophysis and Camposaurus supports the hypothesis that the earliest dinosaurs arose in Gondwana during the Late Triassic period in what is now South America, and radiated around the globe from there.

Ghost Ranch was located close to the equator 200 million years ago, and had a warm, monsoon-like climate with heavy seasonal precipitation.

Hayden Quarry, an excavation site at Ghost Ranch, has yielded a diverse collection of fossil material that included the first evidence of dinosaurs and less-advanced dinosauromorphs from the same time period.

Nesbit et al. (2009) went on to note that dinosaurs left their ancestral range in Gondwana and 200 million years ago they dispersed across the adjoined continents of Pangea.

[3] Nesbit et al. (2009) noted that repeated flooding events collected vertebrate bones, carcasses, and plant material from the landscape surface, possibly in hyperconcentrated flows, and deposited them at what is now Hayden Quarry.

It was observed that these flooding events were separated by intervals where there was standing water and weakly developed, poorly drained (hydromorphic) soil formation.