Huanghetitan

Huanghetitan (meaning "Yellow River titan"), is a genus of sauropod dinosaur from the early Cretaceous Period. It was a basal titanosauriform which lived in what is now Gansu, China.

Huanghetitan
Temporal range: Early Cretaceous, Aptian–Albian
Reconstructed skeletons of Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis and Daxiatitan binglingi (background).
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Dinosauria
Clade: Saurischia
Suborder: †Sauropodomorpha
Clade: †Sauropoda
Clade: †Eusauropoda
Clade: †Neosauropoda
Clade: †Macronaria
Clade: †Camarasauromorpha
Clade: †Titanosauriformes
Lü et al., 2007
Genus: †Huanghetitan
You et al., 2006
Type species
†Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis
You et al., 2006
Other species
  • †H. ruyangensis
    Lü et al., 2007

History
Hind view of skeleton, Henan Geological Museum

The type species, Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis, was described by You et al. in 2006. It is known from fragmentary materials including two caudal vertebrae, an almost complete sacrum, rib fragments, and the left shoulder girdle, and was discovered in the eastern part of the Lanzhou Basin (Hekou Group) in the Gansu Province in 2004.[1]

A second species, H. ruyangensis, was described in 2007 from the Aptian-Albian Haoling Formation of Ruyang County, China (Henan Province). A recent cladistic analysis has found that this species is (or more likely) not related to H. liujiaxiaensis and even requires a new genus name.[2]

Size

It is known from a partial vertebral column and several ribs, the size of which (the largest approaches 3 m (10 ft)) indicate it had among the deepest body cavities of any known dinosaur.[3] This second species, along with its local relatives Daxiatitan and Ruyangosaurus, is one of the biggest dinosaurs ever found in Asia, and possibly one of the largest in the world.[4] In 2019 Gregory S. Paul suggested that the dorsal rib of Huanghetitan ruyangensis is about the same length as Patagotitan's, and its sacrum may be similar in length, possibly suggesting a similar mass range of 45–55 tonnes (49.6–60.6 short tons).[5]

In 2007, Lü Junchang et al. created a new family for Huanghetitan, the Huangetitanidae, but this family found to be polyphyletic by Mannion et al.[3][2]

References
  1. You, H.; Li, D.; Zhou, L. & Ji, Q. (2006). "Huanghetitan liujiaxiaensis, a New Sauropod Dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Hekou Group of Lanzhou Basin, Gansu Province, China". Geological Review. 52 (5): 668–674.
  2. Mannion, Philip D.; Upchurch, Paul; Barnes, Rosie N.; Mateus, Octávio (2013). "Osteology of the Late Jurassic Portuguese sauropod dinosaur Lusotitan atalaiensis (Macronaria) and the evolutionary history of basal titanosauriforms" (PDF). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 168: 98–206. doi:10.1111/zoj.12029.
  3. Lu J., Xu; L., Zhang; X., Hu; W., Wu; Y., Jia, S. & Ji, Q. (2007). "A New Gigantic Sauropod Dinosaur with the Deepest Known Body Cavity from the Cretaceous of Asia". Acta Geologica Sinica. 81 (2): 167. doi:10.1111/j.1755-6724.2007.tb00941.x.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Jinyou Mo, Jincheng Li, Yunchuan Ling, Eric Buffetaut, Suravech Suteethorn Varavud, Suteethorne Haiyan Tong, Gilles Cuny, Romain Amiot & Xing Xu (2020). New fossil remain of Fusuisaurus zhaoi (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Lower Cretaceous of Guangxi, southern China. Cretaceous Research: 104379 (advance online publication). doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104379
  5. Paul, Gregory S. (2019). "Determining the largest known land animal: A critical comparison of differing methods for restoring the volume and mass of extinct animals" (PDF). Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 85 (4): 335–358.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.