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Argentinosaurus huinculensis skeletal

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Description

Argentinosaurus huinculensis ("Argentine reptile from Huincul") is a species of gigantic titanosaur that lived in what is now Argentina during the Middle Cretaceous. Its remains were found in the Huincul Formation. It is popularly believed to be the largest dinosaur, although there are fragmentary indications of a few other sauropods perhaps reaching comparable or larger sizes. Nevertheless, it remains among the largest known titanosaurs. It was reconstructed as a giant saltasaur by Carpenter in 2006, which is very unlikely, in no small part due to its likely basal position within Titanosauria. It also probably didn't battle groups of Giganotosaurus as they lived several million years apart.

The dorsals are based on the arrangement proposed by Powell & Salgado (2010), albeit with the anterior dorsal moved one position forward due to issues with neural spine articulation.

The neck, shoulders, pubis, ischium and tail are based on Patagotitan. The forelimb proportions were based on Epachthosaurus, while the head is based on Tapuiasaurus. The femur length as restored here is based on Mazzetta et al. (2004), which estimates the complete length of the femur shaft MLP-DP 46-VIII-21-3 at ~2.56 metres. Mazzetta et al. (2004) also proposed that this femur shaft and the holotype specimen PVPH-1 were from similarly-sized animals, and thus the two specimens are composited here.

The ilium is reconstructed based on Rukwatitan, and the dorsal ribs and sacrals were drawn as generic elements.

Left and right limbs were swapped to show off the preserved elements.

Reconstructed dimensions
  • Hip height: ~5.58 metres
  • Shoulder height: ~6 metres
  • Total height: ~16.27 metres
  • Standing length: ~29 metres
  • Axial length: ~35.1 metres

References
  • Bonaparte & Coria, 1993, "Un nuevo y gigantesco sauropodo titanosaurio de la formacion Rio Limay (Albiano-Cenomaniano) de la provincia del Neuquen, Argentina"
  • Mazzetta et al., 2004, "Giants and Bizarres: Body size of some southern South American Cretaceous dinosaurs"
  • Salgado & Powell, 2010, "Reassessment of the vertebral laminae in some South American titanosaurian sauropods"
  • Carpenter, 2006, "Biggest of the big: a critical re-evaluation of the mega-sauropod Amphicoelias fragillimus"
  • Gorscak et al., 2014, "The basal titanosaurian Rukwatitan bisepultus (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) from the middle Cretaceous Galula Formation, Rukwa Rift Basin, southwestern Tanzania"
  • Martinez et al., 2004, "An articulated specimen of the basal titanosaurian (Diosauria: Sauropoda) Epachthosaurus sciuttoi from the Early Cretaceous Bajo Barreal Formatiion of Chubut Province, Argentina"
  • Wilson et al., 2016, "The skull of the titanosaur Tapuiasaurus macedoi (Dinosauria: Sauropoda), a basal titanosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of Brazil"
  • Carballido et al., 2017, "A new giant titanosaur sheds light on body mass evolution among sauropod dinosaurs"
  • Paul, 2019, “Determining the largest known land animal: a critical comparison of differing methods for restoring the volume and mass of extinct animals”

Update log
  • 10/11/2017: Updated due to the publication of Patagotitan. The neck and tail have been overhauled, and the anterior dorsal rescaled, causing a slight dip in the anterior dorsal centra to allow it to smoothly articulate with the others. The Phuwiangosaurus-based 1st-4th sacral fusion has been dropped. See the previous version for comparison. Previously, it had a neck scaled based on Phuwiangosaurus with allometry from Parrish & Michael (2006) applied as the isometrically-scaled version was too short to make sense ecologically on an animal of this size, an issue which plagues Carpenter's 2006 reconstruction, and a tail based on Andesaurus.
  • 10/28/2017: Rescaled the neck, and overhauled the tail based on Epachthosaurus, which was placed close to Argentinosaurus consistently in most phylogenetic analyses that include both taxa. See the previous version for comparison.
  • 5/10/2018: Added detail, remade the skull, replaced the scapulacoracoid (Malawisaurus doesn't actually preserve the scapula), and scalebar updated to my new conventions. See the previous version here for comparison.
  • 6/2/2020: Skeletal almost entirely overhauled. Malawisaurus and Andesaurus parts dropped, head replaced with a modification of Tapuiasaurus' skull, revamped the scaling of certain elements, newer data incorporated in general. Posterior view of femur also added.
Image size
6104x3555px 1.41 MB
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CyotheLion's avatar

Wow, a vertebrae from this is tall as a person