Name:
Abditosaurus
(forgotten lizard).
Phonetic: Ab-di-to-sor-us.
Named By: Bernat Vila, Albert Sell�s, Miguel
Moreno-Azanza, Novella L. Razzolini, Alejandro Gil-Delgado,
Jos� Ignacio Canudo & �ngel Galobart - 2022.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Sauropoda, Titanosauria, Lithostrotia,
Saltasauridae, Saltasaurinae.
Species: A. kuehnei (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Holotype roughly estimated to have been
around 17.5meters long.
Known locations: Spain - Tremp group/Conques
Formation.
Time period: Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial skeleton.
Fossils
of Abditosaurus were originally discovered in
1954 and then
described in 1956 as belonging to Hypselosaurus.
Further study
later in the twentieth century however began to see the Hypselosaurus
genus as a dubious one, and many fossils that were assigned to new
genera. A fresh expedition to the 1954 discovery site between
2012 and 2014 discovered additional fossil remains that were
then described in 2017. In 2022 a new genus, Abditosaurus,
was erected to include these fossils.
Abditosaurus
is a genus of titanosaurian
dinosaur that lived in Western Europe
during the late Cretaceous. More specifically Abditosaurus
is a
saltasaurine titanosaur. One key discovery about Abditosaurus
is that
the neck and back vertebrae were found partially articulated, a rare
discovery in sauropods/titanosaurs. The estimated size of the
Abditosaurus holotype has revealed this dinosaur to
have been quite
large when compared to other European titanosaur genera (e.g.
Magyarosaurus)
living in the Late Cretaceous.
Further reading
- Pr�sence de Dinosauriens dans le Cr�tac� sup�rieur du bassin de
Tremp (province de L�rida, Espagne). - Compte rendu sommaire
des s�ances de la Soci�t� g�ologique de France. 14: 261–262 -
A. F. de Lapparent & E. Aguirre - 1956.
- Systematic study of the historical material of Upper Cretaceous
reptiles from the Tremp Basin (Catalonia, Spain) housed at the
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Madrid). - Journal of
Iberian Geology. 43 (2): 217–233 - M. Mart�n Jim�nez,
B. S�nchez-Chill�n, Fernando Escaso, Pedro Mocho, Iv�n
Narv�ez,Francisco Ortega & Ad�n P�rez-Garc�a - 2017.
- A titanosaurian sauropod with Gondwanan affinities in the latest
Cretaceous of Europe. - Nature Ecology & Evolution. 6
(3): 288–296. - Bernat Vila, Albert Sell�s, Miguel
Moreno-Azanza, Novella L. Razzolini, Alejandro Gil-Delgado,
Jos� Ignacio Canudo & �ngel Galobart - 2022.
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