A Gigantic, Exceptionally Complete Titanosaurian Sauropod Dinosaur from Southern Patagonia, Argentina

Abstract

Titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs were the most diverse and abundant large-bodied herbivores in the southern continents during the final 30 million years of the Mesozoic Era. Several titanosaur species are regarded as the most massive land-living animals yet discovered; nevertheless, nearly all of these giant titanosaurs are known only from very incomplete fossils, hindering a detailed understanding of their anatomy. Here we describe a new and gigantic titanosaur, Dreadnoughtus schrani, from Upper Cretaceous sediments in southern Patagonia, Argentina. Represented by approximately 70% of the postcranial skeleton, plus craniodental remains, Dreadnoughtus is the most complete giant titanosaur yet discovered, and provides new insight into the morphology and evolutionary history of these colossal animals. Furthermore, despite its estimated mass of about 59.3 metric tons, the bone histology of the Dreadnoughtus type specimen reveals that this individual was still growing at the time of death.

An articulated cervical series of Alamosaurus sanjuanensis Gilmore, 1922 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from Texas: new perspective on the relationships of North America's last giant sauropod

“…The cervical postzygapophyses also reach to or beyond the posterior rim of the centra in other titanosaurs, such as Isisaurus colberti, Rapetosaurus krausei and Overosaurus paradasorum (Jain & Bandyopadhyay 1997;Curry Rogers 2009;Coria et al 2013). The presence of short postzygapophyses in BIBE 45854 more closely resembles the condition in Dreadnoughtus schrani, some posterior cervical vertebrae of Malawisaurus dixeyi, Trigonosaurus pricei, brachiosaurids, Sauroposeidon proteles and TMM 43621-1 (Wedel et al 2000a, b;Lehman & Coulson 2002;Campos et al 2005;Gomani 2005;Lacovara et al 2014). The postzygapophyses are dorsoventrally deep.…”

“…dixeyi, Trigonosaurus pricei and Dreadnoughtus schrani Gomani 2005;Lacovara et al 2014). This is in marked contrast to the condition in the saltasaurines Saltasaurus and Neuquensaurus, in which the prezygapophyses are directed anterolaterally and stop far short of the anterior end of the condyle (Powell 2003;Salgado et al 2005;Zurriaguz & Powell 2015).…”

A new lithostrotian titanosaur (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Early Cretaceous of Transbaikalia, Russia

“…For the phylogenetic analysis we used recent matrix of sauropods, focused on Titanosauriformes, presented by Lacovara et al (2014). The matrix included 74 taxa and 341 characters.…”

Evidencia fósil de dinosaurios: un aporte a la historia de la paleontología en Centroamérica

“…El tamaño que algunos dinosaurios llegaron a tener es parte de la admiración de los estudiosos por este grupo, es el caso de el sauropodo titanosaurio, Dreadnoughtus schrani, que alcanzó 26 metros de largo y 60 toneladas de peso (Lacovara et al, 2014). Sin embargo, Centroamérica ha estado relativamente desvinculada del tema de los fósiles de dinosaurios porque con base a un conjunto de teorías se ha asumido que para la época de los dinosaurios terrestres, el istmo centroamericano no existía y que la superficie actualmente emergida estaba bajo agua.…”