Pilmatueia
Pilmatueia | |
---|---|
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Order: | Saurischia |
Suborder: | †Sauropodomorpha |
Clade: | †Sauropoda |
Family: | †Dicraeosauridae |
Genus: | †Pilmatueia Coria et al., 2018 |
Pilmatueia is a diplodocoid sauropod belonging to the family Dicraeosauridae that lived in Argentina about 140 million years ago.
Discovery
The type species, Pilmatueia faundezi was described in 2018 by Rodolfo Coria. Pilmatueia is the first recognized Valangininan dicraeosaurid and is the earliest recorded Cretaceous dicraeosaurid. It was part of a South American Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous dicraeosaurid radiation.[1]
The fossils were recovered in a layer of the Mulichinco Formation (Valanginian, Lower Cretaceous, Neuquén Basin, Argentina) and is based on isolated skeletal remains collected from a single stratigraphic level, relatively close to each other, with unquestionable dicraeosaurid features in the axial elements.
Description
Pilmatueia faundezi is diagnosed by a unique combination of several features that include cervico-dorsal vertebrae with dorsoventrally oriented ridges on the anterior surfaces of the anterior centrodiapophyseal laminae, and posterior dorsal vertebrae with deep fossae at the bases of the bifid neural spines separated by a thick, low, sagittal lamina. Pilmatueia is recovered as the sister taxon of the late Early Cretaceous Amargasaurus cazaui.[1]
References
- 1 2 Rodolfo A. Coria; Guillermo J. Windholz; Francisco Ortega; Philip J. Currie (2018). "A new dicraeosaurid sauropod from the Lower Cretaceous (Mulichinco Formation, Valanginian, Neuquén Basin) of Argentina". Cretaceous Research. in press. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2018.08.019.