Janenschia
Fossils of Janenschiaim Berlin Museum of Natural History
- Janenschia robusta
Janenschia is a genus of sauropod dinosaur ( Sauropoda ) from the large group of Titanosaurier. The only known species is Janenschia robusta, in the late Jurassic ( Tithonian ) lived in East Africa.
Janenschia was one of the first dinosaurs that were found in the famous reference Tendaguru in Tanzania. Eberhard Fraas described the Fund as originally Gigantosaurus robustus. It was later discovered that the name was already taken Gigantosaurus and named the way into Tornieria robusta. Finally, it turned out that the animal does not belong to the same genus as Tornieria africana, and so struck Rupert Wild in 1991 the new name Janenschia ago, to commemorate Werner Janensch, the head of the German Tendaguru expedition.
Anatomy
Janenschia was a typical sauropod, tall and with a long neck and tail. He was a very robust construction and reached to around 17 meters in length, a weight of 15 to 20 tons.
The animal walked on four columnar legs; Only the thigh (femur) was 1.38 meters long. Janenschia like how other Titanosaurier, have been covered by armored plates, but for this they have left no fossil evidence.
System
Janenschia is one of the most primitive and oldest known representatives of Titanosauria with which it has a particular significance for our understanding of the origin of this group. The Titanosauria were the most successful group by far the sauropods in the Cretaceous period, and apparently also the only group that survived until the end of this period. They were especially very common and widespread in Gondwana, and the presence of her eldest representative Janenschia in Africa may indicate that here is to also search their origin. Another sometimes to the same genus Asked shape is " Giganotosaurus " dixeyi from the Lower Cretaceous of Malawi. This Titanosaurier but is now a separate genus - Malawisaurus - attributed.