Ibirania
Name: Ibirania
(Tree Wanderer).
Phonetic: I-be-ran-e-ah.
Named By: Bruno A. Navarro, Aline Marcele
Ghilardi, Tito Aureliano, Verónica Díez Díaz, Kamila L.N.
Bandeira, André Cattaruzzi, Fabiano Vidoi Iori, Ariel M.
Martine, Alberto B. Carvalho, Luiz E. Anelli, Marcelo Adorna
Fernandes & Hussam Zaher - 2022.
Classification: Chordata, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Sauropoda, Titanosauria, Lithostrotia,
Saltasauridae, Saltasaurinae.
Species: I. parva (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Holotype estimated to have been about 5.7
meters long.
Known locations: Brazil -São José do Rio Preto
Formation.
Time period: Santonian to Campanian of the
Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial post cranial skeletal
remains.
Ibirania
is a genus of titanosaurian
dinosaur that lived in South America during
the late Cretaceous. While South America is known to have at times
been home to some truly giant titanosaurs, Ibirania
is at the extreme
polar opposite of the size scale. Though incomplete,
reconstructions of the holotype individual suggest Ibirania
was
barely six meters long.
Dwarf
titanosaurs are not unknown, Magyarosaurus
and Europasaurus
from
Europe are both estimated to have only been about six meters long.
However, at the time these dinosaurs lived, Europe was essentially
a large island chain, and the small size of these dinosaurs is
thought to have been a result of evolution pushed by insular dwarfism.
Ibirania however lived on a continent that was
thought to have been a
relatively large land mass, even in the late Cretaceous. So could
it be there was something about the geology of ancient South America
that we don’t yet know, or was there another factor responsible for
Ibirania growing much smaller than its giant
relatives and neighbours?
At the time of writing, no one can be really sure.
Small
size aside, study of the cervical vertebrae of Ibirania
has confirmed
the presence of an avian-like air sac system for respiration. The
presence of such respiratory development in dinosaurs has long been
theorized, but this discovery in Ibirania helps
to shed more light on
this area of dinosaur biology.
Further reading
- A new nanoid titanosaur
(Dinosauria: Sauropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of Brazil. -
Ameghiniana. 59 (5): 317–354. - Bruno A. Navarro,
Aline Marcele Ghilardi, Tito Aureliano, Verónica Díez Díaz,
Kamila L.N. Bandeira, André Cattaruzzi, Fabiano Vidoi Iori,
Ariel M. Martine, Alberto B. Carvalho, Luiz E. Anelli,
Marcelo Adorna Fernandes & Hussam Zaher - 2022.
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