Titanosauria is an exceptionally diverse, globally-distributed clade of sauropod dinosaurs that includes the largest known land animals. Knowledge of titanosaurian pedal structure is critical to understanding the stance and locomotion of these enormous herbivores and, by extension, gigantic terrestrial vertebrates as a whole. However, completely preserved pedes are extremely rare among Titanosauria, especially as regards the truly giant members of the group. Here we describe Notocolossus gonzalezparejasi gen. et sp. nov. from the Upper Cretaceous of Mendoza Province, Argentina. With a powerfully-constructed humerus 1.76 m in length, Notocolossus is one of the largest known dinosaurs. Furthermore, the complete pes of the new taxon exhibits a strikingly compact, homogeneous metatarsus—seemingly adapted for bearing extraordinary weight—and truncated unguals, morphologies that are otherwise unknown in Sauropoda. The pes underwent a near-progressive reduction in the number of phalanges along the line to derived titanosaurs, eventually resulting in the reduced hind foot of these sauropods.
Agua del Choique is a new Late Cretaceous sauropod track site from Mendoza Province, Neuquén Basin, Argentina. It is situated in the Loncoche Formation, late Campanian -early Maastrichthian in age, and is one of the youngest sauropod tracks site recorded in the world. Agua del Choique represents a lake setting and river-dominated delta deposits, and comprises at least 160 well-preserved tracks, located on a calcareous sandstone bed. A new ichnotaxon, Titanopodus mendozensis ichnogen. et ichnosp. nov., is erected for the footprints of this track site. Titanopodus mendozensis exhibits the following association of features: (1) wide-gauge trackway (manus and pes trackway ratios of 18-22 and 26-31 per cent respectively), (2) pronounced heteropody (manus-pes area ratio of 1:3), (3) outer limits of trackway defined, in some cases, by the manus tracks, and (4) manus impression with an asymmetrical crescent contour and acuminate external border. Titanopodus mendozensis is an excellent case study of the wide-gauge style of locomotion produced by Late Cretaceous derived titanosaurs that have no impression of manual phalanges. These features, and the fossil record from the Loncoche Formation, suggest that the trackmakers were, probably, middle size saltasaurine or aeolosaurine titanosaurs (14-16 m long).
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