Austrosaurus
| Austrosaurus | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Cretaceous ( Albium ) | ||||||||||||
| 112.9 to 100.5 million years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Austrosaurus | ||||||||||||
| Longman , 1933 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Austrosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the Titanosauria group . Fossils of this genus come from the Lower Cretaceous ( Albium ) of Queensland , Australia .
Austrosaurus was first scientifically described in 1933 by the British-Australian paleontologist Heber Longman on the basis of three fragmentary, heavily weathered vertebrae ; Type species is Austrosaurus mckillopi . This makes Austrosaurus the first described and named sauropod from Australia. Cooms and Molnar (1981) later described various finds from the vicinity of Winton provisionally as another species of Austrosaurus ( Austrosaurus sp. ) - but today's researchers doubt that these finds actually belonged to Austrosaurus . Hocknull and colleagues (2009) use Austrosaurus as the noun dubium (dubious name), because the vertebrae described by Longman are so poorly preserved that diagnostic features are hardly recognizable.
The name Austrosaurus means something like "southern lizard" ( Lat. Austr - "south", Gr. Sauros - "lizard"), which should refer to the place of discovery in Australia, a continent in the southern hemisphere.
Systematics
While McIntosh (1990) lists Austrosaurus as a sauropod that cannot be classified further (Sauropoda incertae sedis ), Upchurch and colleagues (2004) confirm a position within the Titanosauria. These researchers state that Austrosaurus is likely to be classified outside of the Lithostrotia , which includes all of the more modern Titanosauria.
Research history
The three incomplete vertebrae ( holotype , specimen number QMF 2316) described by Heber Longman come from the Allaru-Mudstone near Maxwelton in northern Queensland. Shortly after the first description was published, Longman received more vertebral remains, which increased the total number of known vertebrae to eight. These vortices have a sponge-like internal structure with numerous chambers. Because of the severe weathering and incompleteness, it is partly unclear which end represents the front and which the rear.
Coombs and Molnar (1981) described various finds of vertebrae and limb bones from the Winton Formation (late Albian to early Cenomanian ) and found that the vertebrae show the same spongy internal structure as the Austrosaurus mckillopi vertebrae. Mainly because of this similarity, Cooms and Molnar ascribed the new finds to the genus Austrosaurus , as Austrosaurus sp.
Today we know that such spongy eddies were not specific to Austrosaurus , but occurred in almost all representatives of the Titanosauriformes group. Thus, the assignment of these finds described by Coombs and Molnar to Austrosaurus appears questionable. The most complete of these finds was described by researchers working with Scott Hocknull (2009) as an independent genus: Wintonotitan .
Individual evidence
- ^ Gregory S. Paul : The Princeton Field Guide To Dinosaurs. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ et al. 2010, ISBN 978-0-691-13720-9 , p. 206, online ( memento of the original of July 13, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ a b Scott A. Hocknull, Matt A. White, Travis R. Tischler, Alex G. Cook, Naomi D. Calleja, Trish Sloan, David A. Elliott: New Mid-Cretaceous (Latest Albian) Dinosaurs from Winton, Queensland, Australia. In: PLOS ONE . Vol. 4, No. 7, 2009, e6190, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0006190 .
- ^ A b c Ralph E. Molnar, Steven W. Salisbury: Observations on Cretaceous Sauropods from Australia. In: Virginia Tidwell, Kenneth Carpenter (Eds.): Thunder-lizards. The Sauropodomorph Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN et al. 2005, ISBN 0-253-34542-1 , pp. 454-465.
- ↑ Ben Creisler: Dinosauria Translation and Pronunciation Guide. Archived from the original on November 6, 2011 ; accessed on August 28, 2014 .
- ^ A b Paul Upchurch , Paul M. Barrett , Peter Dodson : Sauropoda. In: David B. Weishampel , Peter Dodson, Halszka Osmólska (eds.): The Dinosauria . 2nd edition. University of California Press, Berkeley CA et al. 2004, ISBN 0-520-24209-2 , pp. 259-324.
