Turiasaurus
| Turiasaurus | ||||||||||||
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Reconstructed skeleton |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous | ||||||||||||
| 150.8 to 140.2 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Turiasaurus | ||||||||||||
| Royo-Torres , Cobos & Alcala , 2006 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Turiasaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur (Sauropoda) that lived around 150 to 140 million years ago at the time of the transition from the Upper Jurassic to the Lower Cretaceous in what is now Europe. The only known species is T. riodevensis .
The total length of Turiasaurus is estimated to be around 30 to 37 meters and its weight to be 40 to 48 tons. This makes it the largest dinosaur that has been found in Europe to date and at the same time the largest known land animal that has ever lived there. Turiasaurus reached the dimensions of the largest known sauropods from Africa and North America such as Brachiosaurus and Seismosaurus .
The name of the genus is derived from Turia , a place name that has been handed down since the 12th century, from which the present name of the eastern Spanish province of Teruel emerged , and the Greek sauros (σαῦρος) " lizard ". The specific epithet riodevensis refers to the locality Riodeva.
Description of the fossil find
From the terrestrial the 3.50 meters long was left deposits of fossil-rich Villar-del-Arzobispo formation foreleg to be recovered, the upper arm bone ( humerus ) alone reaches a length of 1.79 meters. This find, which is the basis of the holotype of both genus and species, is listed under catalog numbers CPT-1195 to CPT-1210 and is kept in the Museo de la Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinóplis in Teruel . Other fossil remains were discovered within a radius of 280 square meters. In addition to some skull fragments eight teeth in good condition, there were shoulder blade (scapula), thigh bone (femur), the lower leg bone tibia (tibia) and fibula (fibula) and several vertebrae with associated ribs and a number of finger bones.
Systematic position
Due to the completeness of the find, it was possible to establish the new lineage of the Turiasauria within the sauropods , to which the genera Losillasaurus and Galveosaurus belong in addition to Turiasaurus . The Turiasauria are an anatomically primitive group of the Eusauropoda which, like the other very large sauropods, do not belong to the Neosauropoda .
The anatomical originality as well as the completeness of the find allow biomechanical investigations, with the help of which new knowledge about the development of gigantism in the sauropods should be gained.
Individual evidence
- ↑ American Association for the Advancement of Science: Giant Sauropod dinosaur found in Spain . www.eurekalert.org. Retrieved July 30, 2010.
- ^ A b Rafael Royo-Torres, Alberto Cobos, Luis Alcalá: A Giant European Dinosaur and a New Sauropod Clade. In: Science . Vol. 314, No. 5807, pp. 1925-1927, doi : 10.1126 / science.1132885 .
- ↑ Jeff Hecht: Europe's largest dinosaur unearthed in Spain - life - December 21, 2006 - New Scientist . www.newscientist.com. Retrieved July 30, 2010.