''Drusilasaura'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

of possible

lognkosauria Lognkosauria is a clade of giant long-necked sauropod dinosaurs within the clade Titanosauria. It includes some of the largest and heaviest dinosaurs known. Description Lognkosaurians can be distinguished from other titanosaurs by the wide and u ...

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 th ...

sauropod Sauropoda (), whose members are known as sauropods (; from '' sauro-'' + '' -pod'', 'lizard-footed'), is a clade of saurischian ('lizard-hipped') dinosaurs. Sauropods had very long necks, long tails, small heads (relative to the rest of their bo ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

which lived during the late

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

(

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

Turonian The Turonian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the second age in the Late Cretaceous Epoch, or a stage in the Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 93.9 ± 0.8 Ma and 89.8 ± 1 Ma (million years ago). The Turonian is preceded by t ...

stage) of Santa Cruz Province of southern

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. ''Drusilasaura'' is known from the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

MPM-PV 2097/1 to 2097/19, a partial

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

including four dorsal

vertebra The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic ...

e, a sacral vertebra, six caudal vertebrae, a left

scapula The scapula (plural scapulae or scapulas), also known as the shoulder blade, is the bone that connects the humerus (upper arm bone) with the clavicle (collar bone). Like their connected bones, the scapulae are paired, with each scapula on eithe ...

, dorsal

rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

fragments and other fragments. It was found by palaeontologist Marcelo Tejedor searching fossil

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

, in layers of the Upper Member of the

Bajo Barreal Formation The Bajo Barreal Formation is a geological formation in the Golfo San Jorge Basin of Chubut and Santa Cruz, Argentina whose strata date back to the Middle Cenomanian to Late Turonian. The formation was first described by Teruggi & Rossetto in ...

, on the María Aike Ranch owned by the Ortiz de Zárate family. A team from the '' Laboratorio de Paleontología de Vertebrados'' of the ''

Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco The National University of the Patagonia San Juan Bosco (Spanish: ''Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia San Juan Bosco'') is a higher education establishment in Patagonia, southern Argentina. It was created on February 25, 1980, by law 22.713, as ...

'' subsequently collected the remains.Navarrete, C.; Casal, G. & Martínez, R., (2008), "Nuevos materiales de Titanosauridae (Lognkosauria?) de la Formación Bajo Barreal, Cretácico Superior, Santa Cruz, Argentina". In: ''CONGRESO LATINOAMERICANO DE PALEONTOLOGÍA DE VERTEBRADOS, 3, 2008. Libro de Resúmenes'' p. 176 ''Drusilasaura'' was named by César Navarrete, Gabriel Casal and Rubén Martínez in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is ''Drusilasaura deseadensis''. The generic name honours Drusila Ortiz de Zárate, a young female member of the family who owns the ranch where the fossil was found, also making the name end in the feminine "-saura" instead of the masculine "-saurus". The specific name refers to the

Río Deseado Deseado River () is a river in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz. The name Deseado comes from the English ''Desire'', the name of one of the two ships commanded by John Davis during the Thomas Cavendish expedition of 1592. The source of t ...

. ''Drusilasaura'' is a large sauropod. The length of the scapula is 143 centimetres, 30% longer than that of ''

Mendozasaurus ''Mendozasaurus'' is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur. It was a member of Titanosauria, which were massive sauropods that were common on the southern landmasses during the Cretaceous. It is represented by several partial skeletons from ...

''. ''Drusilasaura'' was assigned to the

Titanosauridae Lithostrotia is a clade of derived titanosaur sauropods that lived during the Early Cretaceous and Late Cretaceous. The group was defined by Upchurch ''et al.'' in 2004 as the most recent common ancestor of ''Malawisaurus'' and ''Saltasaurus'' an ...

by the describers and considered a possible member of the

Lognkosauria Lognkosauria is a clade of giant long-necked sauropod dinosaurs within the clade Titanosauria. It includes some of the largest and heaviest dinosaurs known. Description Lognkosaurians can be distinguished from other titanosaurs by the wide and u ...

. If so, it would be the oldest known lognkosaurian.

References

Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of South America Titanosaurs Fossil taxa described in 2011 {{Sauropodomorph-stub