''Aegyptosaurus'' (meaning 'Egypt's lizard') is a

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 ...

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 ...

that lived in what is now

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, around 95

million years ago The abbreviation Myr, "million years", is a unit of a quantity of (i.e. ) years, or 31.556926 teraseconds. Usage Myr (million years) is in common use in fields such as Earth science and cosmology. Myr is also used with Mya (million years ago). ...

, during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

Period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...

(

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 ...

faunal stage In chronostratigraphy, a stage is a succession of rock strata laid down in a single age on the geologic timescale, which usually represents millions of years of deposition. A given stage of rock and the corresponding age of time will by convent ...

Discovery and naming

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 ...

(1912VIII61) consists of three

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 ...

, a partial

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 ...

, and some limb bones, all of which were discovered in the

Bahariya Formation The Bahariya Formation (also transcribed as Baharija Formation) is a fossiliferous geologic formation dating back to the early Cenomanian, which outcrops within the Bahariya depression in Egypt, and is known from oil exploration drilling across ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

between 1910 and by

Ernst Stromer Ernst Freiherr Stromer von Reichenbach (12 June 1871 in Nürnberg – 18 December 1952 in Erlangen) was a German paleontologist. He is best remembered for his expedition to Egypt, during which the first known remains of ''Spinosaurus'' we ...

and

Richard Markgraf Richard Markgraf (13 March 1869 – January or February 1916) was a German Bohemian paleontologist. He is best remembered for his expeditions to Egypt, which discovered the first known remains of many extinct fossil reptiles, such as '' Aegyptos ...

and the holotype was sent to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

in 1915 to be studied at the same time the holotype of ''

Spinosaurus aegyptiacus ''Spinosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the Cenomanian to upper Turonian stages of the Late Cretaceous period, about 99 to 93.5 million years ago. The genus was known first fro ...

'' was described. Aegyptosaurus-holotype

''Aegyptosaurus'' was described by German paleontologist

in 1932, seventeen years after the holotype was sent to Munich,Stromer, E. (1932a)
Ergebnisse der Forschungsreisen Prof. E. Stromers in den Wüsten Ägyptens. II. Wirbeltierreste der Baharîje-Stufe (unterstes Cenoman). 11. Sauropoda.
''Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Abteilung, Neue Folge,'' 10: 1-21. and its fossils have been found in the

, the

Farak Formation The Farak Formation is a geological formation in Niger, central Africa. Its strata date back to the Early Cenomanian. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.Weishampel, David B; et al. (2004). "Dinosau ...

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesSahara Desert , photo = Sahara real color.jpg , photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972 , map = , map_image = , location = , country = , country1 = , ...

. The generic name, ''Aegyptosaurus'', is derived from the country in which it was discovered and the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''sauros'' meaning 'lizard'. All of the specimens destroyed in 1944 were discovered before 1939 and the fossils were stored together in

, but were obliterated when an Allied bombing raid destroyed the museum where they were kept on 25 April 1944, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Only fragments from other specimens still exist, mostly in the form of indeterminate specimens from

and

Niger ) , official_languages = , languages_type = National languagesCurry Rogers, K. (2005), “Titanosauria: A Phylogenetic Overview” in Curry Rogers and Wilson (eds), ''The Sauropods: Evolution and Paleobiology'' pp. 50–103 Aegyptosaurus LM

de Lapparent (1960) referred a series of caudal vertebrae from the

Continental intercalaire The Continental intercalaire, sometimes referred to as the Continental intercalaire Formation, is a term applied to Cretaceous strata in Northern Africa. It is the largest single stratum found in Africa to date, being between thick in some places. ...

to ''Aegyptosaurus baharijensis.''de Lapparent, A.F. (1960): “Les dinosauriens du “continental intercalaire” du Sahara central” (“The dinosaurs of the “continental intercalaire” of the central Sahara.”) ''Mémoires de la Société Géologic de France, Nouvelle Série'' 88A vol.39(1-6):1-57.

Description

In 2010, based on ''Paralititan'' and other related titanosaurs,

Gregory S. Paul Gregory Scott Paul (born December 24, 1954) is an American freelance researcher, author and illustrator who works in paleontology, and more recently has examined sociology and theology. He is best known for his work and research on theropod dino ...

estimated the length of ''Aegyptosaurus'' at , and its weight at .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q131577 Titanosaurs Early Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa Late Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa Albian life Cenomanian life Fossils of Egypt Cretaceous Africa Fossils of Niger Cretaceous Niger Fossil taxa described in 1932 Taxa named by Ernst Stromer