Bernardo J. González Riga, Matthew C. Lamanna,
Leonardo D. Ortiz David,
Jorge O. Calvo & Juan
P. Coria
Titanosauria is an exceptionally diverse, globally-distributed clade of
sauropod dinosaurs that includes the largest known land animals. Knowledge of
titanosaurian pedal structure is critical to understanding the stance and
locomotion of these enormous herbivores and, by extension, gigantic terrestrial
vertebrates as a whole. However, completely preserved pedes are extremely rare
among Titanosauria, especially as regards the truly giant members of the group.
Here we describe Notocolossus gonzalezparejasi gen. et sp. nov.
from the Upper Cretaceous of Mendoza Province, Argentina. With a powerfully-constructed
humerus 1.76 m in length, Notocolossus is one of the largest known
dinosaurs. Furthermore, the complete pes of the new taxon exhibits a strikingly
compact, homogeneous metatarsus—seemingly adapted for bearing extraordinary
weight—and truncated unguals, morphologies that are otherwise unknown in
Sauropoda. The pes underwent a near-progressive reduction in the number of
phalanges along the line to derived titanosaurs, eventually resulting in the reduced
hind foot of these sauropods.
González
Riga, BJ., Lamanna, MC., Ortiz David, LD., Calvo, JO. & Coria, JP. 2016 A
gigantic new dinosaur from Argentina and the evolution of the sauropod hind
foot. Nature. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep19165
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