Puertasaurus

Vertebrae of Argentinosaurus and Puertasaurus compared

• Argentina, Santa Cruz ( Pari Aike Formation)

• Puertasaurus reuili

Puertasaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the very large group of Titanosauria. So far, very fragmentary fossils are only known from the Late Cretaceous (early Maastrichtian ) of the Argentine province of Santa Cruz come. The only way is Puertasaurus reuili.

Description

Noteworthy on the vertebrae found is their size. The cervical vertebrae found, probably cervical vertebra 9, has a largest diagonal size of 140 centimeters and 118 centimeters long - only the Brachiosauriden Sauroposeidon are longer. The dorsal vertebrae with a height of 106 centimeters and a width of 168 centimeters wider than any other Sauropodenwirbel. Puertasaurus belonged together with Argentinosaurus and Antarctosaurus the largest sauropods of the Late Cretaceous. All three genera lived in South America.

Discovery

The only known Fund ( holotype, specimen number MPM - 10002 ) comes from the layers of the Pari Aike Formation at Cerro Los Hornos. It consists of only four not in the anatomical context retrieved vertebrae: a cervical vertebra, a completely preserved vertebrae and the vertebral bodies of two middle tail vertebrae. Thus about 3% of the entire skeleton is well known. These fossils were in situ along with carbonized plant remains found in lenses of fine-grained, gray sandstone. Other dinosaurs of the pari- Ake lineup include the basal iguanodons Talenkauen and an up to now undescribed tetanuren a theropod with.

Puertasaurus reuil after the discoverers of the fossils and taxidermy, Pablo Puerta and Santiago Reuil been named.

System

Puertasaurus assigned by the Erstbeschreibern the basis of features of the vortex Titanosauridae. He was probably a basal (original ) Titanosauridae. Other researchers see the name Titanosauridae to be invalid, and instead use the term Lithostrotia.

Source

• Fernando E. Novas, Leonardo Salgado, Jorge Calvo, Federico Agnolin: Giant titanosaur ( Dinosauria, Sauropoda ) from the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia. In: . Revisto del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales, ns 7, No. 1, 2005, pp. 37-41 (PDF).