Saltasaurus
Saltasaurus Media
Saltasaurus loricatus Bonaparte and Powell, 1980 bony plate (PVL 4017−113) from El Brete locality (Late Cretaceous, ?late Campanian–Maastrichtian, Salta Province, Argentina) in external (A) and lateral (B, C)views.
Saltasaurus herd passes Quilmesaurus and Noasaurus
Size comparison of Saltasaurus, size based on Donald Henderson
Egg on display at the North American Museum of Ancient Life
| Saltasaurus Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous Circa 2020
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| Family: | Saltasauridae
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| Genus: | Saltasaurus
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Saltasaurus was a large plant-eating dinosaur with an elongated neck and bony armored plates on its body. It was a titanosaurid sauropod which lived during the late Cretaceous period, about 83 to 79 million years ago. Fossils have been found in Argentina.
It was the first genus of sauropod known to have armour of bony plates embedded in its skin. The small bony plates (called osteoderms, a feature of modern crocodiles) have since been found on other titanosaurs.
Description
Saltasaurus was named by paleontologists José Bonaparte and Jamie Powell in 1980. Salta is the name of the Northwestern Argentinian Province where fossils were found. They include: a few oval and circular armored plates, hundreds of bumps which covered its back (roughly 1/4 inch = 6-7 mm in diameter), and several incomplete skeletons, including some vertebrae, limb bones, and jaws.