Jobaria
Jobaria tiguidensis, skeleton in the Australian Museum in Sydney.
Jobaria is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Middle and Upper Jurassic of the Sahara, North Africa. Only species described is Jobaria tiguidensis.
The fossil remains of the genus were found in the Tiouraren lineup at Agadez and Tahoua Farak lineup in the African country of Niger. Another skeleton found a German team at the Natural History Museum Braunschweig 2007 in the Sahara.
Etymology
The term Jobaria tiguidensis derives from " Jobar ", a mystical creature in the legends of the local Tuareg nomads and the Tiguidi - cliff close to the reference.
Description
The description of Jobaria based on some partially preserved in the anatomical context skeletons and well-preserved skulls. Overall, about 95 percent of the bones are preserved fossil.
The skull is relative to body size is smaller and lighter built than that of Camarasaurus. The snout was short. In Upper and lower jaws are each 20 wide teeth that have a different number of denticles on their spade -shaped crowns. The neck was relatively short and was supported by only twelve cervical vertebrae. The Neuralfortsätze the vertebrae were simple and undivided. The proportions of the limbs are primitive: The front legs are in relation to the rear legs do not extend (such as the Brachiosaurus ) and the metacarpal bone is also not extended in comparison with the front leg ( as is the case for example when Camarasaurus or other Macronaria ). Jobaria was about 18 to 21 meters long.
System
The describer, Paul Sereno, saw in the genus, the sister group of the Neosauropoda. Today Jobaria is provided along with the closely related genera Atlassaurus and Bellusaurus in a monophyletic clade at the base of Macronaria.
The following cladogram shows the systematic position of Jobaria:
Other taxa of Sauropoda
Bellusaurus
Jobaria
Atlassaurus
Camarasaurus
Titanosauriformes