''Katepensaurus'' 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 of

rebbachisaurid Rebbachisauridae is a family of sauropod dinosaurs known from fragmentary fossil remains from the Cretaceous of South America, Africa, North America, Europe and possibly Central Asia. Taxonomy In 1990 sauropod specialist Jack McIntosh included t ...

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 known from the Late Cretaceous of south-central Chubut Province of central Patagonia, Argentina. It contains a single species, ''Katepensaurus goicoecheai''.

Discovery

''Katepensaurus'' was first described and named by Lucio M. Ibiricu, Gabriel A. Casal, Rubén Dario Martínez, Matthew C. Lamanna, Marcelo Luna and Leonardo Salgado in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

and the type species is ''Katepensaurus goicoecheai''. It is known solely from the holotype, a partial axial skeleton that includes

cervical In anatomy, cervical is an adjective that has two meanings: # of or pertaining to any neck. # of or pertaining to the female cervix: i.e., the ''neck'' of the uterus. *Commonly used medical phrases involving the neck are **cervical collar **cervic ...

, dorsal, and

caudal vertebrae 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 ...

, found in close association. The holotype, UNPSJB-PV 1007, was collected from 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 ...

, dating to the

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 ...

or Turonian stage of the Late Cretaceous. The generic name is derived from Tehuelche ''katepenk'', "hole", referring to a distinctive opening in the transverse processes of the dorsal vertebrae. The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

honours Alejandro Goicoechea, the owner of the ''Estancia Laguna Palacios'' where the fossil was found.

Description

The dorsal vertebrae of ''Katepensaurus'' were found to be unique among other

s, exhibiting five autapomorphies, i.e. unique traits. Lateral pneumatic fossa of the centrum (the central part of a vertebra) is divided by internal laminas. On the lateral surface of the vertebrae, overlying the neurocentral junction, vertical ridges or crests are present. A pair of laminae is present in parapophyseal centrodiapophyseal fossa. There are a well-defined, rounded fossae on lateral aspect of postzygapophyses. Finally, transverse processes are perforated by elliptical

fenestrae A fenestra (fenestration; plural fenestrae or fenestrations) is any small opening or pore, commonly used as a term in the biological sciences. It is the Latin word for "window", and is used in various fields to describe a pore in an anatomical st ...

on the vertebrae. ''Katepensaurus'' was assigned to

Limaysaurinae Khebbashia is a clade of herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs belonging to the Rebbachisauridae. P. D. Mannion, P. Upchurch, D. Schwarz and O. Wings. (2019). Taxonomic affinities of the putative titanosaurs from the Late Jurassic Tendaguru Formation ...

, a subfamily of rebbachisaurid diplodocoid, based on the presence of traits that were found to diagnose limaysaurines in previous phylogenetic analyses.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15179026 Rebbachisaurids Cenomanian life Turonian life Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of South America Cretaceous Argentina Fossils of Argentina Bajo Barreal Formation Fossil taxa described in 2013 Taxa named by Matt Lamanna