Saltasaurids
   HOME
*





Saltasaurids
Saltasauridae (named after the Salta region of Argentina where they were first found) is a family of armored herbivorous sauropods from the Upper Cretaceous. They are known from fossils found in South America, Asia, North America, and Europe. They are characterized by their vertebrae and feet, which are similar to those of ''Saltasaurus'', the first of the group to be discovered and the source of the name. The last and largest of the group and only one found in North America, ''Alamosaurus'', was in length and one of the last sauropods to go extinct. Most of the saltasaurids were smaller, around in length, and one, ''Rocasaurus'', was only long. Like all sauropods, the saltasaurids were quadrupeds, their necks and tails were held almost parallel to the ground, and their small heads had only tiny, peg-like teeth. They were herbivorous, stripping leaves off of plants and digesting them in their enormous guts. Although large animals, they were smaller than other sauropods of their ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Alamosaurus
''Alamosaurus'' (; meaning "Ojo Alamo lizard") is a genus of opisthocoelicaudiine titanosaurian sauropod dinosaurs, containing a single known species, ''Alamosaurus sanjuanensis'', from the late Cretaceous Period of what is now southern North America. Isolated vertebrae and limb bones indicate that it reached sizes comparable to ''Argentinosaurus'' and ''Puertasaurus'', which would make it the largest dinosaur known from North America. Its fossils have been recovered from a variety of rock formations spanning the Maastrichtian age of the late Cretaceous period. Specimens of a juvenile ''Alamosaurus sanjuanensis'' have been recovered from only a few meters below the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary in Texas, making it among the last surviving non-avian dinosaur species. Description ''Alamosaurus'' was a gigantic quadrupedal herbivore with a long neck and tail and relatively long limbs. Its body was at least partly covered in bony armor. In 2012 Thomas Holtz gave a total length of ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Opisthocoelicaudiinae
Opisthocoelicaudiinae is a subfamily of titanosaurian dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous. It was named by John McIntosh in 1990. Opisthocoelicaudiines are known from Mongolia, Argentina, and the United States. Two genera were assigned to Opisthocoelicaudiinae by Gonzalez ''et al.'' (2009): ''Alamosaurus'' and ''Opisthocoelicaudia'' (the type genus), a conclusion also found by Díez Díaz ''et al.'' (2018). The hands of opisthocoelicaudiines lacked wrist bones and phalanges. It was suggested by Averianov and Lopatin in 2022 that ''Opisthocoelicaudia'' was not in fact closely related to ''Saltasaurus'', and instead to ''Nemegtosaurus'' and '' Quaesitosaurus'', which are both also Laurasian, as well as isolated teeth from the Turonian of Uzbekistan and the Santonian of Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Saltasaurus
''Saltasaurus'' (which means "lizard from Salta") is a genus of saltasaurid dinosaur of the Late Cretaceous period of Argentina. Small among sauropods, though still heavy by the standards of modern creatures, ''Saltasaurus'' was characterized by a short neck and stubby limbs. It was the first genus of sauropod known to possess armour of bony plates embedded in its skin. Such small bony plates, called osteoderms, have since been found on other titanosaurians. Discovery The fossils of ''Saltasaurus'' were excavated by José Bonaparte, Martín Vince and Juan C. Leal between 1975 and 1977 at the Estancia "El Brete". The find was in 1977 reported in the scientific literature. ''Saltasaurus'' was named and described by Bonaparte and Jaime E. Powell in 1980. The type species is ''Saltasaurus loricatus''. Its generic name is derived from Salta Province, the region of north-west Argentina where the first fossils were recovered. The specific name means "protected by small armoured plat ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Saltasaurinae
Saltasaurinae is a subfamily of titanosaurian sauropods known from the late Cretaceous period of South America, India and Madagascar. Description Saltasaurines are relatively small sauropods with the general body shape of a small head, long neck, four limbs, and a long tail. They range from the small '' Ibirania'' at around , to the larger ''Neuquensaurus'' at . A currently unnamed fragmentary sauropod from Madagascar may turn out to be a saltasaurine longer than ''Neuquensaurus''. The weight of saltasaurines is very light compared to that of some of the largest dinosaurs. Thomas R. Holtz Jr. found the genera range from around , with ''Saltasaurus'' and an unnamed genus on both extremes, respectively.Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. (2011) ''Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages,'Winter 2010 Appendix./ref> Saltasaurinae is the only known group of sauropods found with armour from almost every species. The most probable reason for the bony stu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Rocasaurus
''Rocasaurus'' (meaning "General Roca lizard") is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod that lived in South America. ''Rocasaurus'' was discovered in Argentina in 2000, within the Allen Formation which is dated to be middle Campanian to early Maastrichtian in age (75 to 70 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous). This genus grew up to long, making it one of the smaller sauropods. It seems to be closely related to saltasaurid dinosaurs, like ''Saltasaurus'' and ''Neuquensaurus''. The type species, ''Rocasaurus muniozi'', was formally described by Leonardo Salgado Leonardo Salgado is an Argentinean palaeontologist with a special interest in dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period and other investigations of the palaeobiology of fossil bearing geological formations. Salgado is the leading or coauthor of several t ... and Azpilicueta in 2000.Salgado, L. and C. Azpilicueta. (2000). Un nuevo saltasaurino (Sauropoda, Titanosauridae) de la provincia de Río Negro (Formacíon Allen, Cretácic ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Zhuchengtitan
''Zhuchengtitan'' (meaning "Zhucheng titan") is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Shandong, China. It contains a single species, ''Z. zangjiazhuangensis'', named by Mo Jinyou and colleagues in 2017 from a single humerus. ''Zhuchengtitan'' can be identified by the extreme width of the top end of its humerus, as well as the expansion of the deltopectoral crest on its humerus; both of these characteristics indicate that it was likely closely related to ''Opisthocoelicaudia''. However, it differs from the latter by the flatter bottom articulating surface of its humerus. ''Zhuchengtitan'' lived in a floodplain environment alongside ''Shantungosaurus'', ''Zhuchengtyrannus'', and ''Sinoceratops''. Discovery and naming ''Zhuchengtitan'' is known from a single humerus that was discovered in the Wangshi Group within the region of Zhucheng, Shandong, China. The primary fossil localities within this region are the Longgujian, Kugou, and Zangjiazhuang Quarr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Qingxiusaurus
''Qingxiusaurus'' (meaning "Qingxiu lizard"; "Qingxiu" is short for Pinyin "shangqingshuixiu", which means "a picturesque scenery of mountains and water in Guangxi") is a genus of titanosaur sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Dashi Site of Guangxi, China. The type species, described by Mo ''et al.'' in 2008, is ''Q. youjiangensis''. Like other sauropods, ''Qingxiusaurus'' would have been a large quadrupedal herbivore. It is known from only limited remains collected in 1991: Two humeri The humerus (; ) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extremity consists of a round ..., two sternal plates, and the neural spine of a single vertebra. References Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Asia Saltasaurids Fossil taxa described in 2008 {{Sauropodomorph-stub ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign nation. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population. The territory of modern-day Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the First Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China proper and established the Yuan dynasty. After the co ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Charles W
The F/V ''Charles W'', also known as Annie J Larsen, is a historic fishing schooner anchored in Petersburg, Alaska. At the time of its retirement in 2000, it was the oldest fishing vessel in the fishing fleet of Southeast Alaska, and the only known wooden fishing vessel in the entire state still in active service. Launched in 1907, she was first used in the halibut fisheries of Puget Sound and the Bering Sea as the ''Annie J Larsen''. In 1925 she was purchased by the Alaska Glacier Seafood Company, refitted for shrimp trawling, and renamed ''Charles W'' in honor of owner Karl Sifferman's father. The company was one of the pioneers of the local shrimp fishery, a business it began to phase out due to increasing competition in the 1970s. The ''Charles W'' was the last of the company's fleet of ships, which numbered twelve at its height. The boat was acquired in 2002 by the nonprofit Friends of the ''Charles W''. The boat was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Saurischia
Saurischia ( , meaning "reptile-hipped" from the Greek ' () meaning 'lizard' and ' () meaning 'hip joint') is one of the two basic divisions of dinosaurs (the other being Ornithischia), classified by their hip structure. Saurischia and Ornithischia were originally called orders by Harry Seeley in 1888 though today most paleontologists classify Saurischia as an unranked clade rather than an order.Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). (2004). ''The Dinosauria. 2nd edition''. University of California Press, Berkeley. 833 pp. Description All carnivorous dinosaurs (certain types of theropods) are traditionally classified as saurischians, as are all of the birds and one of the two primary lineages of herbivorous dinosaurs, the sauropodomorphs. At the end of the Cretaceous Period, all saurischians except the birds became extinct in the course of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. Birds, as direct descendants of one group of theropod dinosaurs, are a sub-clad ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Coracoid
A coracoid (from Greek κόραξ, ''koraks'', raven) is a paired bone which is part of the shoulder assembly in all vertebrates except therian mammals (marsupials and placentals). In therian mammals (including humans), a coracoid process is present as part of the scapula, but this is not homologous with the coracoid bone of most other vertebrates. In other tetrapods it joins the scapula to the front end of the sternum and has a notch on the dorsal surface which, along with a similar notch on the ventral surface of the scapula, forms the socket in which the proximal end of the humerus (upper arm bone) is located. The acrocoracoid process is an expansion adjacent to this contact surface, to which the shoulderward end of the biceps brachii muscle attaches in these animals. In birds (and generally theropods and related animals), the entire unit is rigid and called scapulocoracoid. This plays a major role in bird flight. In dinosaurs the main bones of the pectoral girdle were the sca ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Titanosaur
Titanosaurs (or titanosaurians; members of the group Titanosauria) were a diverse group of sauropod dinosaurs, including genera from all seven continents. The titanosaurs were the last surviving group of long-necked sauropods, with taxa still thriving at the time of the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous. This group includes some of the largest land animals known to have ever existed, such as ''Patagotitan''—estimated at long with a weight of —and the comparably-sized ''Argentinosaurus'' and ''Puertasaurus'' from the same region. The group's name alludes to the mythological Titans of ancient Greek mythology, via the type genus (now considered a '' nomen dubium)'' ''Titanosaurus''. Together with the brachiosaurids and relatives, titanosaurs make up the larger sauropod clade Titanosauriformes. Titanosaurs have long been a poorly-known group, and the relationships between titanosaur species are still not well-understood. Description Titanosauria have the largest ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]