Adamantisaurus
| Adamantisaurus | ||||||||||||
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Artistic live representation of Adamantisaurus |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Upper Cretaceous (possibly late Campanium to early Maastrichtian ) | ||||||||||||
| 76.4 to 69.9 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Adamantisaurus | ||||||||||||
| Santucci & Bertini , 2006 | ||||||||||||
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Adamantisaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the group of titanosaur , in the Upper Cretaceous lived South America.
Like all sauropods, Adamantisaurus was a large, quadruped (four-footed) herbivore with a long neck and tail. So far, only 6 anterior connected caudal vertebrae and two haemapophyses (extensions of caudal vertebrae) are known, which were discovered in the Brazilian province of São Paulo . The genus was the only way , adamantisaurus mezzalirai , in 2006 by Santucci and Bertini first described .
features
The six caudal vertebrae were anatomically connected when they were discovered; it was probably a series from the second to the seventh caudal vertebrae. The vertebrae were strongly procoel, that is, concave on the front. Some autapomorphies (distinguishing features) were found on these vertebrae , with which one can distinguish the genus from other genera: For example, the vertebral processes pointing upwards were slightly inclined backwards and laterally enlarged at their upper ends, and the post- and prezygapophyses ( mechanical connecting elements of the vertebrae) enlarged connecting surfaces, whereby the connecting surface of the postzygapophyses was concave.
Find and naming
The paleontologist Sergio Mezzalira collected the vertebrae as early as 1958 while building a railway (Adamantina – Irapuru), together with some titanosaur teeth and an almost completely preserved turtle, which has not yet been scientifically described. The site is located near Florida Paulista in southwest São Paulo and geologically belongs to the Adamantina Formation , a member of the Bauru group . The exact age of the Bauru group is still controversial, but the first description suggests that the bones come from the late Campanian to early Maastrichtian .
Mezzalira (1966, 1989) originally assigned a thigh bone to the vertebrae that was recovered by workers during the construction of the railway from the same site from which the vertebrae later emerged. The first descriptors did not ascribe this bone to the Adamantisaurus , however, since it probably belonged to another individual; so it was small in relation to the vertebrae and showed a different state of preservation. In addition, sites where several species are discovered together are common in the Adamantina Formation, which is why the bone could also belong to a different species.
The name Adamantisaurus is derived from the Adamantina formation, from which the fossils originate, as well as from the Greek σαῦρος sauros - "lizard". The Artepitheth mezzalirai honors the paleontologist Sergio Mezzalira, who collected the bones and mentioned them for the first time in the literature.
literature
- Rodrigo Miloni Santucci, Reinaldo J. Bertini: A new titanosaur from western São Paolo State, Upper Cretaceous Bauru Group, south-east Brazil. In: Palaeontology. Vol. 49, No. 1, 2006, ISSN 0031-0239 , pp. 59-66, doi : 10.1111 / j.1475-4983.2005.00527.x .
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. 208, online .