Tastavinsaurus
| Tastavinsaurus | ||||||||||||
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Tastavinsaurus in a live artistic representation |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Lower Cretaceous (Lower Aptium ) | ||||||||||||
| 126.3 to 123 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Tastavinsaurus | ||||||||||||
| Canudo et al., 2008 | ||||||||||||
| Art | ||||||||||||
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Tastavinsaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the group of Titanosauriformes . So far, two fragmentary skeletons are known that come from the Lower Cretaceous (Lower Aptium ) of Spanish Aragon . The only species is Tastavinsaurus sanzi .
features
Tastavinsaurus , like all sauropods, was a four-legged herbivore with a long neck and tail. This genus can be distinguished from related genera on the basis of 19 unique characteristics ( autapomorphies ), which are found primarily on the vertebrae, but also on the pelvic, leg and foot bones. For example, the length ratio between the ischium and the pubic bone is 0.7, while the cnemial ridge , a bone ridge located in the knee region on the shin bone, is divided into two thin vertical ridges. The shin is also relatively short, measuring only 55% of the length of the femur .
The two known skeletons differ from one another in a number of anatomical features. The skeleton discovered first shows a paired ischium that is relatively shorter. In addition, this skeleton is overall more robust than the second skeleton. These differences could be due to individual variations or to gender dimorphism .
Systematics
The Titanosauriformes form a group within the sauropod dinosaurs and contain the Titanosauria and various original representatives, such as Brachiosaurus . Tastavinsaurus is one of the original representatives of the group. A cladistic analysis by Canudo and colleagues (2008) comes to the conclusion that Tastavinsaurus is the sister genus of Venenosaurus ; Both genera are more strongly derived (advanced) than Brachiosaurus and can be combined with the Titanosauria in a group called Somphospondyli .
Royo-Torres and colleagues (2009, 2012) propose to combine Tastavinsaurus , Venenosaurus and Cedarosaurus in a new group within the Titanosauriformes, the Laurasiformes . The Laurasiformes are defined as a stemline-based taxon that includes all taxa that are more closely related to Tastavinsaurus than to Saltasaurus .
Find, research history and naming
The first find was made in the early 1990s by the fossil collectors and brothers Andrés and Pedro Ortiz. The site ( Masia de Arsis ) is located in the municipality of Peñarroya de Tastavins in the Spanish province of Teruel . The two collectors were made aware of the site by weathering bone fragments on the surface of the site, an excavation that was then started revealed a femur , vertebrae and pubic bones . In 1996 an employee of the regional government of Aragon became aware of the find, whereupon more extensive, scientifically supervised excavations took place from winter 1996 to January 1997. It took two more years to prepare the fossils. Today the fossils are part of a permanent exhibition at the Dinópolis Paleontological Museum in Teruel .
The skeleton ( holotype , copy number MPZ 99/9) is in a good state of preservation and was found partially articulated, that is, the bones were partially in their original anatomical position. It is one of the best preserved and most complete sauropod skeletons from the Lower Cretaceous Europe. It consists of 4 dorsal vertebrae, 25 caudal vertebrae, sacrum, 9 ribs, 21 chevron bones , pelvic bones (both iliac bones, pubic bones, ischium bones) and leg bones (thigh bones, 1 tibia and fibula, astragalus , 6 metatarsals, 7 phalanxes including 4 claws).
The second find was discovered in 2004 on a forest path near El Castellar by a team of researchers from the Dinópolis Museum, the site was named La Canaleta . This skeleton (copy number CT-19) consists of 16 ribs, parts of the shoulder girdle and a complete hind leg.
The first skeleton is from the Xert Formation , while the second skeleton is from the base of the Forcall Formation . Both rock units are dated to the Lower Aptium and were deposited under marine conditions.
Tastavinsaurus was first scientifically described in 2008 by José Canudo and colleagues . The first description was based only on the first skeleton discovered within the Xert formation. It was not until 2012 that the skeleton from the Forcall Formation was described as the second known specimen of this genus. The name Tastavinsaurus ( Catalan tastavin , Gr. Sauros - "lizard") refers to the municipality of Peñarroya de Tastavins , where the first skeleton was found. The word tastavin originally comes from Catalan and means "wine taster". The second part of the species name, sanzi , honors José Luis Sanz for his studies of Spanish dinosaur finds .
supporting documents
literature
- Rafael Royo-Torres, Luis Alcalá, Alberto Cobos: A new specimen of the Cretaceous sauropod Tastavinsaurus sanzi from El Castellar (Teruel, Spain), and a phylogenetic analysis of the Laurasiformes. In: Cretaceous Research. Vol. 34, 2012, ISSN 0195-6671 , pp. 61-83, doi : 10.1016 / j.cretres.2011.10.005 .
- José I. Canudo, Rafael Royo-Torres, Gloria Cuenca-Bescós: A new sauropod: Tastavinsaurus sanzi gen. Et sp. nov. from the Early Cretaceous (Aptian) of Spain. In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Vol. 28, No. 3, 2008, ISSN 0272-4634 , pp. 712-731, doi : 10.1671 / 0272-4634 (2008) 28 [712: ANSTSG] 2.0.CO; 2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Royo-Torres et al. 2012 , pp. 61-66
- ↑ Royo-Torres et al. 2012 , p. 71
- ↑ Canudo et al. 2008 , pp. 726-728
- ↑ Royo-Torres et al. 2012 , pp. 73-77
- ↑ a b c d Canudo et al. 2008 , pp. 712-713