Fossilized stays discovered in Patagonia, Argentina back in 2009 represent a brand-new genus and types of plant-eating dinosaur that came from a group called Rebbachisauridae.
Campananeyen fragilissimusImage credit: Fundación Azara.
The newly-discovered dinosaur types resided in Patagonia in between 99 to 96 million years ago(Late Cretaceous date).
Called Campananeyen fragilissimusthe ancient plant-eater was an early member of Rebbachisauridae, a group of diplodocoid sauropods that diversified mostly on the supercontinent Gondwana in between the Early and Late Cretaceous.
“Rebbachisauridae is recuperated as the basal-most group of Diplodocoidea,” stated Dr. Lucas Lerzo, a paleontologist with the Fundación Azara– Universidad Maimónides and CONICET, and his associates.
“Although the presumed origin of diplodocoid sauropods remains in the Late Lower to Early Middle Jurassic, it is not till the Lower Cretaceous that rebbachisaurid sauropods appear in the fossil record, with a peak of variety at the end of the history of the household in the Early Upper Cretaceous.”
“Rebbachisauridae is identified by an extremely pneumatized skeleton which deeply gets into the axial skeleton and the pelvic girdle.”
“They provide unique functions in the dorsal vertebrae not reported in any other sauropod.”
The postcranial remains of Campananeyen fragilissimus were gathered in 2009 from the Candeleros Formation in Barda Atravesada de Las Campanas, Neuquén Province, Argentina.
They were discovered in addition to the fossils of little theropod and rebbachisaurid dinosaurs, a turtle and a lizard.
The group’s analysis reveals that Campananeyen fragilissimus is carefully associated to Zapalasaurus Sidersaura and a specimen from the La Amarga Formation.
“The brand-new rebbachisaurid is recuperated as the sis taxon of Sidersaura due the existence of procoelous posterior caudal vertebrae and dorsoventrally flattened posterior caudal centra,” the scientists stated.
Campananeyen fragilissimus provides a severe pneumatization of the sacral area with an autapomorphic dorsal alar arm of the sacral transverse procedures.”
“Finally, the phylogenetic analysis supports a South American origin for Rebbachisauridae and an early diversity to Africa and Europe by the Barremian-Aptian as formerly recommended.”
The discovery of Campananeyen fragilissimus is reported in a paper in the journal Historic Biology
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Lucas N. Lerzo et alThey all drifted in the cretaceous: brand-new rebbachisaurid (Sauropoda, Diplodocoidea) with an extremely pneumatized skeleton from the Upper Cretaceous (lower Cenomanian) of Patagonia, Argentina. Historic Biology, released online August 13, 2024; doi: 10.1080/ 08912963.2024.2383708
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