A new gigant titanosaur (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) from the Upper Cretaceous of Northwestern Patagonia, Argentina

AGNOLIN, FEDERICO L.; GONZALEZ RIGA, BERNARDO J.; ARANCIAGA ROLANDO, ALEXIS M.; ROZADILLA, SEBASTIÁN; MOTTA, MATÍAS J.; CHIMENTO, NICOLÁS R.; NOVAS, FERNANDO E.

CRETACEOUS RESEARCH (PRINT)

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Año: 2023

0195-6671

Chucarosaurus diripienda gen. et sp. nov. is a new and large titanosaurian sauropod from the Neuquén B asin, Rio Negro Province, Patagonia. The specimen was discovered in the Upper Cretaceous strata of the Huincul Formation (middle Cenomanian– lower Turonian). It includes appendicular and relatively slender elements, with a femoral total length of about 1.9 m long. This taxon shows a unique combination of characters indicating that appendicular bones such as the femur, ischium and tibia, show a remarkable morphological variety, greater than previously described, and are morphologically informative as source of phylogenetic data. A cladistic phylogenetic analysis placed Chucarosaurus well nested within the Colossosauria clade, as a sister taxon of Notocolossus + (Lognkosauria).