Argentinosaurus

Argentinosaurus was a titanosaurid sauropod dinosaur. It was an enormous, long-necked, long-tailed, quadrupedal, plant-eater from Argentina, South America during the Cretaceous period.

Argentinosaurus
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, 96.2–92.19 Ma
↓
Reconstructed skeleton, Museo Municipal Carmen Funes, Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The original vertebrae are seen on the lower left
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Archosauria
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Suborder: †Sauropodomorpha
Clade: †Sauropoda
Clade: †Titanosauria
Clade: †Lithostrotia
Clade: †Lognkosauria
Genus: †Argentinosaurus
Bonaparte & Coria, 1993
Type species
†Argentinosaurus huinculensis
Bonaparte & Coria, 1993

Argentinosaurus meaning "Argentina lizard", was named by paleontologists Coria & José Bonaparte in 1993. It is known from fossilized back vertebrae, tibia, ribs and sacrum, found in Neuquén Province. It may be the largest dinosaur,[1] but its remains are so incomplete that palaeontologists prefer to use Saltasaurus for their calculations. An accurate estimate was got for the much more complete sub-adult Dreadnoughtus.[2][3]

Rough estimates
Skeletal diagram

The following shows the disagreement on estimates of size:

  • Thomas Holtz: 120 feet (36.6 meters)?[4]
  • Mickey Mortimer: 22–26 meters.[1]

References
  1. Mortimer, Mickey ( Chi glucógeno fisyzt2001-09-12). "Titanosaurs too large?". Dinosaur Mailing List. Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Lacovara, Kenneth J.; et al. (2014). "A gigantic, exceptionally complete titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from southern Patagonia, Argentina". Scientific Reports. 4: 6196. doi:10.1038/srep06196. PMC 5385829. PMID 25186586.
  3. Campione, Nicolás E.; Evans, David C. (2012). "A universal scaling relationship between body mass and proximal limb bone dimensions in quadrupedal terrestrial tetrapods". BMC Biology. 10: 15. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-10-60. PMC 3403949. PMID 22781121.
  4. Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. 2012. Dinosaurs: the most complete, up-to-date encyclopedia for dinosaur lovers of all ages .


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.