Argentinosaurus
Argentinosaurus was a titanosaurid sauropod dinosaur. It was an enormous, long-necked, long-tailed, quadrupedal, plant-eater from Argentina, South America during the Cretaceous period.
| Argentinosaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous
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| Reconstructed skeleton, Museo Municipal Carmen Funes, Plaza Huincul, Argentina. The original vertebrae are seen on the lower left | |
Scientific classification 
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| Unrecognized taxon (fix): | Argentinosaurus |
| Type species | |
| †Argentinosaurus huinculensis Bonaparte & Coria, 1993
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Argentinosaurus meaning "Argentina lizard", was named by paleontologists Coria & José Bonaparte in 1993. It is known from fossilized back vertebrae, tibia, ribs and sacrum, found in Neuquén Province. It may be the largest dinosaur,[1] but its remains are so incomplete that palaeontologists prefer to use Saltasaurus for their calculations. An accurate estimate was got for the much more complete sub-adult Dreadnoughtus.[2][3]
Rough estimates
The following shows the disagreement on estimates of size:
Argentinosaurus Media
Skeletal reconstruction, holotype material in white, referred femoral shaft in green, referred femur in blue, unknown bones in grey
Size comparison of selected giant sauropod dinosaurs, Argentinosaurus in red and second from the left
Hypothetical life restoration
Dorsal vertebra cast in left side view at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Dorsal vertebra cast in front view at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, with the palaeontologist Matthew Wedel for scale
Assigned femur (upper thigh bone), Museo de La Plata
Skeletal reconstruction in dorsal view, at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History
Reconstructed skeleton in side view, Fernbank Museum of Natural History
A video showing Argentinosaurus walking as estimated by computer simulations from a 2013 study
Silhouettes of dinosaurs from the Huincul Formation as size comparison
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References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mortimer, Mickey ( Chi glucógeno fisyzt2001-09-12). "Titanosaurs too large?". Dinosaur Mailing List. [1] Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Lacovara, Kenneth J.; et al. (2014). "A gigantic, exceptionally complete titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from southern Patagonia, Argentina". Scientific Reports. 4: 6196. doi:10.1038/srep06196. PMC 5385829. PMID 25186586.
- ↑ Campione, Nicolás E.; Evans, David C. (2012). "A universal scaling relationship between body mass and proximal limb bone dimensions in quadrupedal terrestrial tetrapods". BMC Biology. 10: 15. doi:10.1186/1741-7007-10-60. PMC 3403949. PMID 22781121.
- ↑ Holtz, Thomas R. Jr. 2012. Dinosaurs: the most complete, up-to-date encyclopedia for dinosaur lovers of all ages [2].