Abydosaurus

Holotype of Abydosaurus mcintoshi

• North America ( Dinosaur National Monument )

Abydosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous ( Albian ) of North America. The genus and the type species A. mcintoshi was described scientifically in 2010. The genus is named after the Egyptian city of Abydos, where the head and neck of Osiris, the ancient Egyptian god of the afterlife, rebirth, fertility and the dead shall be buried.

The description was based on two completely preserved skulls, a snout and a skull. The discovery of skulls is unusual for sauropods, as they remain rare fossil for their ease of construction. Overall, the skulls are only one third of the sauropods get parts and even less genera complete skulls are handed down. Since the few postcranial fossil material obtained (skeletal parts behind the skull ) has not yet been prepared, it was not consulted for the first description.

Features

All four skulls are about the same size, they are about half a meter long and about half as high. The maxillary region ( premaxilla and maxilla ) is clearly separated from the rest of the skull. Unlike other sauropods such as Camarasaurus and Brachiosaurus the Macronaria are at the Abydosaurus, as in all sauropods backward shifted external nasal openings, smaller than the bony orbits (orbit ), which are the largest skull openings at Abydosaurus.

In Upper and lower jaws are located on each side of 14 teeth, which differ in size and shape. The teeth of the upper jaw having a D- shaped cross-section are larger than the opposite them of the lower jaw, whose cross section is elliptical.

System

Abydosaurus is considered within the Titanosauriformes as a sister species of Brachiosaurus.