Laplatasaurus
Name:
Laplatasaurus
(La Plata lizard).
Phonetic: La-pla-tah-sore-us.
Named By: F. von Huene - 1929.
Synonyms: Titanosaurus araukanicus.
Classification: Chordata, Reptilia, Dinosauria,
Saurischia, Sauropoda, Titanosauria.
Species: L. araukanicus
(type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Estimated about 18 meters long.
Known locations: Argentina - Allen Formation,
Anacleto Formation. Uruguay - Asencio Formation.
Time period: Early Campanian of the Cretaceous.
Fossil representation: Partial remains of at least
three individuals.
Laplatasaurus
was initially named in 1927 by the famous palaeontologist Friedrich
von Huene, however a full description was not published until
1929, which is why Laplatasaurus is credited as
being named in
1929. Laplatasaurus has a somewhat confusing
relationship with the
titanosaurid
Titanosaurus.
One former species of Titanosaurus, T.
madagascariensis was in 1933 named as a species of Laplatasaurus
by Friedrich von Huene and Charles Alfred Matley, but today these
fossils are considered to belong to the Titanosaurus
type species,
T. indicus. In 2003, J. E. Powell
proposed that the
Laplatasaurus genus should itself be made a synonym
of Titanosaurus,
though other palaeontologists (Wilson & Upchurch, 2003)
have refuted this, saying that Laplatasaurus is
separate. At the
time of writing some eleven years after this proposal, Laplatasaurus
is still considered to be a distinct genus by most.
Laplatasaurus
is represented by the partial remains of a few individuals that have
been found in Argentina and Uruguay. The Argentinian fossils are
usually interpreted as late Albian/early Cenomanian in age, marking
the boundary between early and late Cretaceous. The Uruguayan fossils
however are distinctly Cenomanian in age, making a temporal range of
Laplatasaurus being confirmed as at least early
Cenomanian, though
the full extent is still speculative.
Further reading
- Short review of the present knowledge of the Sauropoda. Memoirs
of the Queensland Museum 9(1):121-126 - F. von Huene -
1927.
- Terrestrische Oberkreide in Uruguay [The terrestrial Upper
Cretaceous in Uruguay]. Centralblatt für Mineralogie, Geologie
und Paläontologie Abteilung B 1929:107-112 - F. von Huene -
1929.
- Revision of South American titanosaurid dinosaurs:
palaeobiological, palaeobiogeographical and phylogenetic aspects.
- Records of the Queen Victoria Museum 111: 1-173 - J. E.
Powell - 2003.
- A revision of Titanosaurus Lydekker
(Dinosauria-Sauropoda),
the first dinosaur genus with a "Gondwanan" distribution". -
Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 1(3): 125-160. - J.
A. Wilson & P. Upchurch - 2003.
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