Zupaysaurus (/ˌzuːpeɪˈsɔːrəs/; "ZOO-pay-SAWR-us") is an extinct genus of early theropod dinosaur living during the Norian stage of the Late Triassic in what is now Argentina.

The type species was named Z. rougieri in the honor of Guillermo Rougier, the scientist who led the expedition which discovered and collected the holotype (original specimen) PULR-076.

The holotype specimen was designated PULR-076, which consists of a nearly complete skull which was very well preserved, the right shoulder girdle, the lower right leg and ankle, and twelve vertebrae from the neck, back, and hips.

As Zupaysaurus was originally described, the head bore two thin parallel crests on top of the skull, similar to theropods like Dilophosaurus and Coelophysis kayentakatae.

An unpublished abstract presented at a recent conference indicated the structures initially identified as crests were in fact the lacrimal bones displaced upwards during the process of fossilization.

[1] Analyses by Carano (2005), Tykoski (2005), and Ezcurra and Novas (2005) have classified Zupaysaurus as a coelophysoid related to Segisaurus and probably Liliensternus, though more basal than Coelophysis.

This formation has been shown by magnetostratigraphy to date to the Norian stage of the Late Triassic period, approximately 228 to 208 million years ago.

[1] The Los Colorados Formation was interpreted as an ancient floodplain and it was home to several types of early sauropodomorph dinosaurs (including Riojasaurus, Coloradisaurus , and Lessemsaurus), all of which shared the same paleoenvironment with Zupaysaurus.